


and i owe it all to you

by thebitterlesbian



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Dirty Dancing AU, F/F, and science, but nothing graphic, but there will be dancing, mentions of violence in chapter 5, there shouldn't be much angst here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-09-27 05:04:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 43,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9969419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebitterlesbian/pseuds/thebitterlesbian
Summary: Erin Gilbert's family goes to a family resort for the last few weeks of the summer before her first year of college. There, she gets involved with Jilly, a rebellious dance instructor, and eventually falls for her.Or, a Dirty Dancing AU because I'm really human garbage.





	1. you're the one thing i can't get enough of

**Author's Note:**

> Two things. 1: I started writing this in my head because of something I saw on the internet and it wouldn't go away. I'm sorry if it's terrible, but I love it, so I hope it's not.  
> 2: I know there may be inconsistencies between the two worlds, but I did the best I could. Erin is a few years younger than Holtzmann, and the story takes place in modern times.

Erin Gilbert stared out the window of her parents’ car as it sped down the highway, watching the trees and grass melt into a blur of green. A song tumbled from the speakers of the radio, tuned to an oldie’s station. A book on quantum physics was propped open in her lap but miles had passed since she’d paid it any attention, which was unusual for her, because she typically spent every available moment with her nose buried in a book. But she had other things on her mind, the most pressing of which were the next few weeks that lay ahead of her. She let the music and chatter from the front seat wash over her as she got lost in her thoughts.

When her father had informed the family that they would be spending the last few weeks of the summer at a resort in the mountains where he’d been asked to take a role as the camp’s doctor (a personal favor to an old med school classmate, he said), she’d been more than happy to agree. She was glad at the chance to get out of their town for a few weeks before finally leaving for college. Erin hadn’t had too many friends throughout her life, and her best friend, Abby, would be her roommate at college in the fall anyway. The thought of leaving the town and its people behind two and a half weeks early was like Erin’s wildest dreams coming to life.

Her mind wandered to the downside of the fact that she would be spending almost three weeks of quality time alone with her family…which was that fact that it would be almost three weeks _alone_ with her family. Erin had always struggled to see eye-to-eye with her family on a lot of things, from her belief in ghosts and her determination to prove they existed to her choice in friends and romantic partners.

It was about this last factor that the majority of disagreements over the past few months had started. For self-identified tolerant people, they were quite close-minded when it came to their daughter. She supposed that, maybe, coming out to one’s parents wasn’t the best addition to a Christmas dinner, especially not when one’s very religious, conservative extended family was in attendance, and that perhaps the tension was at least partly – okay, mostly – her own fault, but she had justified it by saying that if gay was the very worst thing she could be, she wasn’t too upset about it. She was still intelligent, headed for college in the fall with a full scholarship to study physics. She was obedient and always listened to her parents. She’d never been into rule-breaking and rebellion, while Lisa had gone through a two-year rebellious phase.

No, she was just a lesbian who believed in ghosts, but apparently, that was not okay.

All the same, she had apologized for informing her parents (who had always known anyway) in that way, and they had told her that they loved her just the same. But she could tell in the way her mother tried to set her up with her friends’ sons and in the way that her father had started to talk about his coworkers’ sons that they would still prefer she find a nice, intelligent, highly educated man to settle down with.

She knew she wouldn’t. So instead, she indulged her parents’ fantasies for the time being, knowing college was just around the corner. It still bothered her, though, knowing her parents were okay with gay people so long as the gay person in question wasn’t their daughter.

Erin was pulled from her thoughts by another groan from her sister, Lisa, who was next to her in the backseat. Her sister, who was far less enthused about the family’s end-of-summer plans, had made her thoughts on the situation known more than once since it was introduced, and the reminders of her unhappiness had only escalated once they were in the car and on their way. The prospect of spending more than two full weeks away from her friends, the Internet, decent cell phone reception, and the comforts of home was, in her own words, the purest and evilest form of torture her parents could have possibly come up with.

Erin looked up at the sound. Her sister was holding her phone in front of her face, using it to look at her reflection as she pushed her bangs back and forth across her forehead. Lisa was two years older than Erin, and studied…well, Erin wasn’t really sure what it was at that point. It had changed several times since she’d gone off to college.

She rolled her eyes at her sister’s actions, then turned her eyes back to her book. The pencil in her hand tapped against the edge of the page as she took in the words, occasionally writing a note or question in the margin, or underlining something that stood out to her. Her parents continued chatting and her sister continued primping, but Erin quickly became absorbed by the world of physics, thinking about how it could apply to her own work the next year in college.

She didn’t look up from her book until she caught glimpses of changing scenery from the corner of her eye. The trees creeped closer to the road, which changed from a two-lane highway flowing one way to a smaller, clearly less-used road. She closed her book and tucked it into her back, folding down the page she’d left off on, before turning her gaze back to the window to watch as they arrived.

MacKay’s Family Resort was a high-end summer camp in the mountains. According to the brochure her father had handed her the night he announced that they would be there for the last session of the summer, the founder of the camp, Keller MacKay, was dedicated to bringing families together in a setting away from technology, work, and the stresses of the 21st century. The camp offered everything from croquet and dancing to obstacle courses and even a high-ropes course, all in the name of familial bonding.

It looked like an ideal place for those things to happen, Erin realized as her father swung the car onto the property. A large blue billboard with fading black letters announced their arrival, and claimed that Keller MacKay himself welcomed her. The trees seemed to grow on top of each other after the sign, until Mr. Gilbert pulled the car through and turned. Erin felt a small smile spreading across her lips as she stared down a small hill and took in the scenes in front of her.

The main building of the camp, which housed the kitchen and dining area, was made of stone and had a red roof, which Erin liked immediately. As far as she could see, the grass was green and vibrant, and there were gravel paths cut through the grounds. People milled around on them, some in bright blue polos and khaki shorts, others in various states of what she would consider ‘professionals trying to be casual.’

Speakers lining the pathway and throughout the camp played music loud enough to mingle with the car radio and her father flicked it off, letting the sounds from outside drift through the windows. The speakers played a similar station to the oldies her parents had been listening to, matching the session’s “Good Old Days” theme. Every so often a voice crackled over the music, giving instructions to resort employees and campers.

Her father maneuvered the SUV carefully through the camp before joining a line of other cars at the check-in building. Her parents slid out of their seats and Lisa scrambled to follow, complaining to their mother that she hadn’t been allowed to bring a fourth suitcase full of shoes on top of her three that were full of clothes.

“Lisa, I think three full suitcases is enough to last,” their mother shot back, the tiredness at her oldest daughter’s complaints apparent in her voice.

“It is not a tragedy,” her father cut in as he stretched and walked around the car. “A tragedy is how much people pay for healthcare, or cutting funds for public services.”

“Or having Donald Trump as President,” Erin cut in, rolling her eyes and grimacing.

“Oh, shut up, _baby_ ,” Lisa said, throwing Erin’s childhood nickname at her.

Erin rolled her eyes again, then turned towards the camp and watched as a man dressed in a polo and matching hat, both with the camp’s name in big red letters across them, yelled into a megaphone. He relayed the day’s events off in a loud, excited voice, telling the whole camp about horseshoes on the South Lawn, swimming at the pool, landscape art class at the gazebo, and volleyball and croquet at the courts.

A man in a dark grey suit and tie called her father’s name and walked quickly over to their car, followed by a younger man, dressed in a polo but with a grey jacket thrown over it. The younger man pulled a wagon behind him. The other man, who Erin quickly realized was Mr. Keller MacKay, praised her father’s work before recalling a story that he remembered from when they were in medical school together.

Mr. MacKay instructed the young man next to him to get the family’s bags from the back of the SUV. As Erin followed him, she heard Mr. MacKay talking about the camp.

“Now, I kept the best cabin for you and your girls,” he said. Erin didn’t catch the rest of what he said, but thought he had a gentle, joyful voice, the kind that could put you in a good mood just by talking to you.

She started sorting through the bags in the back of the SUV, pulling out the few that belonged to her. How her sister had managed to take up more than half of the vehicle’s trunk space by herself was beyond Erin, who collected her suitcase, duffel bag, and backpack quickly.

“Hey, thanks a lot! You want a job here?” the young man who’d followed Mr. MacKay to their car turned to her with a smile as he placed one of Lisa’s many bags in the wagon. She laughed and shook her head, but continued to help him unload the car and reload the bags into the wagon.

As she walked back around the car, she overheard Mr. MacKay telling her father all about the dance lessons the camp offered throughout the week. She gathered that these lessons were something the camp was known for, and made a mental note to avoid them at all costs. Things that involved grace, coordination, and keeping a beat, like dancing, were all beyond Erin’s realm of expertise, and she felt infinitely more comfortable watching them than doing them.

Mr. MacKay led them to their cabin to get settled. As they walked, Erin watched the people around them.

There were other families that resembled hers – parents who, in most cases, looked significantly happier than their children who, in most cases, looked like they would rather be anywhere else in the world. There were more families with younger children, who were bouncing and skipping around their parents, avoiding the hands that would make them stand still and behave themselves. There were tired-but-cheerful people wearing button-up shirts and khakis that Erin could only guess were administrators, called over to take care of issues with reservations and payment and other business.  Everywhere, other resort staff, in bright blue polos and khaki shorts, answered questions and gave directions.

Before he left, Mr. MacKay insisted that they all go to at least one activity that evening. Lisa, who’d also heard about the dance lesson, exclaimed that she couldn’t wait, prompting her mother to tell the camp’s owner that they were all looking forward to it.

Erin rolled her eyes but bit her tongue. She knew that all she had to do to survive the next few weeks with her family was to smile, nod, and agree with everything that was asked of her, and then she’d be free to do her own thing when she got to campus.

But…dancing? She really wasn’t looking forward to it.

She settled into the room she’d share with her sister slowly, only bothering to unpack half her clothes. She left the other outfits in the suitcase, which she shoved under her bed, before flopping onto the mattress and pulling her backpack onto her lap. She was soon lost in the world of quantum physics again, and didn’t look up until she heard Lisa walk into the room.

She watched as her sister painstakingly unpacked each outfit and hung it with care, arranging her shoes beneath her clothes just as carefully. It took her almost three times as long as Erin’s admittedly half-assed own attempt.

“So, that boy who unpacked the car, he was kind of cute, wasn’t he, Baby?” Lisa shot at her, a smirk evident in her voice that Erin knew was because of both the topic of conversation and the second use of her childhood nickname. Her sister, who had always been boy-crazy, had only escalated her near-obsessions when Erin had come out. It was almost like Lisa was trying to pick up the slack for Erin’s lack of heterosexuality by emphasizing her own.

“Sure, I guess…if you’re into that kind of thing,” Erin returned, rolling her eyes yet again. She briefly wondered if it was possible for her eyes to fall out due to excessive rolling.

Lisa just snorted before turning her attention to the romance novel she’d placed on their shared nightstand. Less than half an hour had passed before the girls heard a knock at their door and their mother’s head popped into the room.

“Lisa, Baby! Your father and I are going to learn the merengue!” Erin could hear the excitement in her mother’s voice. “Do you girls want to come to the lesson?”

Lisa agreed after only one moan of annoyance, but Erin hesitated for a moment. Ultimately, she gave in to the look of happiness in her mom’s eyes. As she slipped her feet into white sneakers, she sent a prayer to the heavens that she wouldn’t hurt herself, or anyone else.

The late afternoon air was warm as Erin trailed behind her family on the way to the gazebo where they would learn to do a dance that Erin had already forgotten how to pronounce. She took in the cabins and buildings as they passed through the camp. The gazebo was perched near the lake, and the water looked smooth and calm as they approached.

Within a few minutes, it was clear that Erin was anything but _smooth and calm_. She lost count of the number of feet she stepped on as she swung her body back and forth, despite trying her best to mimic Penny, the dance instructor, exactly. And she’d been watching Penny _very_ closely, her eyes quickly taking in the way the dancer’s red dress clung to her body, accentuating her ass and unwilling to stray too far away from the woman. The woman’s long blonde hair shook behind her as she moved.

Eventually Erin gave up on the dance and just sort of bobbed in place, moving her feet as little as possible. Even her _parents_ were better dancers than she was.

By the time Penny announced that it was time for a round robin and began leading the group into a big circle reminiscent of a conga line, Erin was more than ready for the experience to be over. “Alright ladies, when the music stops, you’re gonna find the man of your dreams!” Penny shouted over the music, making Erin groan out loud. She ended up paired with an elderly woman, and she groaned again. She was beginning to feel like Lisa. “Now remember, he’s the boss of the dance floor, if nowhere else!” Penny’s second statement was met with another, slightly louder, groan from Erin, who quickly smiled at the elderly woman who was dancing happily, holding Erin’s shoulders.

Erin was pleased when the music faded to a stop and Penny announced that she would be teaching a lesson the next day, and hoping to see them all there.

Erin allowed herself to get lost in her thoughts again as she followed her parents back to their cabin to get ready for dinner. An hour later, after a cool shower and a change of clothes, she was perched on the stairs in front of their cabin, waiting on the rest of the family. She felt restless and the thought of sitting there for another hour, at least, as Lisa finished getting ready irritated her.

Erin stood up and swept her eyes over her surroundings. She’d been given a verbal tour of the camp, but curiosity about the rest of the area pressed against her mind. She shouted into the door that she was going up to the main house and told her father that she would meet the rest of the family at dinner.

She set off on the stone path that led from their cabin, the hem of her dress brushing against her knees and tickling as she moved. Evening was setting in and it was getting dark, but her head swiveled to her left and right, taking in the scenery around her.

White tables and chairs with red and white striped umbrellas were scattered around the yard close to the cabins, and the white gravel pathways cut lines through the grass. Lights flickered in many of the windows, blinking welcomingly down at her. A few families sat at the tables, conversing about things Erin couldn’t make out as she passed.

The main house was large enough to get lost in. She moved through the hallways quietly, hearing the building buzz with chatter from staff members and supervisors. Delicious scents drifted from the kitchen, mingling with the warm late summer air.

Eventually, she made her way up to the dining area to wait for her family, though she knew she’d be early. She was finding a chair to settle into when she heard Mr. MacKay’s voice floating through a pair of doors that had been left cracked open. His voice had a more serious tone than what she’d heard earlier.

“There are two kinds of help here,” Erin heard him say as she approached the door. She peeked through the crack, but all she could make out were tables set for dinner. She took a few more steps until she had a clear view of the room, listening as she walked. She spotted Mr. MacKay surrounded by a group of boys who looked to be around her own age, all dressed to look like penguins with white jackets over white shirts and black ties.

“You waiters are all college guys, and I went to Harvard and Yale to hire you,” his voice had an edge of something else in it now, almost condescension, as he talked to his employees. “And why did I do that? Why? I shouldn’t have to remind you this is a family place. That means ya keep your fingers out of the water, your hair out of the soup, and show the goddamn daughters a good time! All the daughters, even the dogs!”

Erin felt her face fall into a frown, suddenly a little disgusted at her father’s old friend. She heard him continuing to give instructions on what they should and shouldn’t do to show the daughters a good time when the group turned towards a sound that came from the back of the dining room.

Another group of people, dressed in blue t-shirts, marched through the room.

“You got that, guys?,” the figure joked. The voice rooted Erin to the spot even more than the sight of her did. It was low but sensual, and Erin felt it flow over each part of her body like water. She felt a little lightheaded.

A woman with curly blonde hair, swept into an elaborate-looking bun at the back of her head, stood with her arms crossed over her chest, a black leather jacket folded between them. Dark sunglasses with yellow frames obscured her eyes, but her lips were curled into a bold smirk. She wore a black t-shirt with a v-cut neckline and dark jeans, and both pieces of clothing hugged her body tightly.

Erin felt the air squeeze out of her lungs and had to remind herself to inhale.

“Hey, hold it! Hold it,” she heard Mr. MacKay’s voice take on yet another tone, this time of impatience. “Well, if it isn’t the entertainment staff,” he continued, the disdain now apparent in his words.

Rather than disappear at the thinly-veiled insult, the woman’s smirk grew even wider. Mr. MacKay swiveled so that he was facing the woman, looking down at her.

“Listen, wiseass. You got your own rules. Dance with the daughters, teach them the mambo, the cha-cha, anything they pay for. That’s it. That’s where it ends,” he said, now jabbing a finger into the woman’s shoulder. Erin wondered what the other woman had done to deserve a warning like that. Had she…slept with a resort guest? Another woman? Mr. MacKay had specifically referenced ‘daughters’…

_Great_ , she thought to herself. _As if she weren’t attractive enough…now she’s_ gay _on top of it?_ Erin almost groaned again, but quickly stifled it as she remembered she was eavesdropping.

Mr. MacKay was still talking, presumably to the whole group, but focused on the blonde woman, who was still smirking up at him. “No funny business, no conversations, and _keep your hands off_!” The last command was accompanied by a rather frightening grimace.

_So…yes, she’s gay_ , Erin concluded silently, torn between excitement and dismay. Another woman who was attracted to women, but Erin couldn’t even talk to her.

Her disappointment mounted as one of the other people in the crowd behind the woman leaned over and whispered what she assumed was a joke in her ear. The blonde woman let out a laugh that floated gently over the air but hit Erin with such force she could have sworn it had changed states and become solid halfway between her and the other woman.

It was unmistakable in the way the other woman seemed to float over the ground, and the grace with which she carried herself and made each movement. The other woman was another dance instructor, and dancing was the one thing Erin had hoped to avoid throughout her entire stay at MacKay’s Family Resort.

She stepped back silently, eyes still fixed on the other woman as she walked out of Erin’s line of sight, followed by the rest of the entertainers.

Erin was distracted as she walked across the grounds again, heading towards her cabin. She tripped on loose stones here and an emerged root from a nearby tree there, and almost plowed over a table and chair set before pulling herself from her thoughts and focusing on each movement. She felt her own clumsiness in her limbs and the hesitation before her steps, so different from the ease and poise of the other woman as she moved. Even standing still, the other woman seemed to have more grace than Erin.

She sat back down in the same spot on the stairs after arriving at the cabin and telling her parents that she’d come back early. She lost herself in daydreams of dancing, of turning and moving and being graceful for the first time in her 18 years of life. The blonde woman floated into her mind, taking her by the hand and twirling her around, always catching her in strong but gentle arms.

The contents of Erin’s daydream shifted and left her wondering what else the blonde did with grace and a gentle but firm hand before she pulled herself back to reality in time to hear her family walking out of the cabin behind her. She set off after them, but again, her mind drifted back to the blonde woman and she allowed herself to get lost in thoughts of her once more.


	2. i carried a watermelon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erin dances with a boy, tells him she believes in ghosts, and can't stop watching Jilly dance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the positive feedback on the first chapter! I know the plot in terms of the movie is moving a little slowly, but please bear with me and I hope you enjoy it! Also, I'm sorry these chapters are so long - I wanted to put even more in this chapter but at that point it would have been twice as long as it is now. So double thank you for your patience!

Erin lagged behind her family as they walked the gravel paths to the main house for dinner. Thoughts of the blonde woman were still invading her mind, making it difficult for her to focus on much else. She absentmindedly took her place at the table and listened as Mr. MacKay introduced them to their waiter, one of the young men from the group the resort owner had been talking to earlier.

She listened as Mr. MacKay schmoozed her father on his employee’s behalf. She gathered that the dark-haired boy, Philip, was a student at Yale Medical School, which earned him a satisfied nod from her father. The boy smiled and the action made Erin’s skin crawl; the sensation intensified when she noticed that he was having trouble keeping his eyes off of Lisa.

“Philip, these people are my special guests. Get them anything they want,” Mr. MacKay said as he patted her father’s shoulder before walking away.

The meal passed slowly, Erin chiming in when absolutely necessary but keeping quiet otherwise. It didn’t seem to bother her parents, but her sister must have noticed something was off and, as her parents talked about how nice it was to be able to get out of the city and away for a while, Erin felt a finger jab into her side.

“What is _up_ with you tonight?” Lisa hissed into her ear. “You’re acting weird, even for you.”

The prod to her side and the whispered question pulled Erin back from another daydream about the blonde woman. She shook her head quickly and whispered, “I’m just a little tired, that’s all.” She knew the lie was unconvincing, but it seemed to appease her sister, who turned her attention back to her plate.

Erin wanted to eat the rest of her meal in silence, but she forced herself to contribute more to the discussion. Eventually, as Philip began to clear their plates, the conversation turned towards the upcoming school year. Mr. MacKay was stationed behind her father again, listening to every word being said at the table.

The waiter informed her father that he hoped to open his own family practice someday. This delighted her father, who immediately began giving the younger man advice. He told them that the reason he wanted to go into family practice was so that he could be involved in a community and help its members live healthier lives. Erin almost threw up. Her father was on the verge of tears.

“Well, Keller, Philip, our Baby here, Erin, she’s going to change the world too,” her father said proudly. “Sure, she’s going to major in physics, but she’ll change the world somehow. She’s too strong-willed not to!” He laughed as he finished talking, and Erin knew that, despite his best efforts to understand her, he didn’t really get where her passion for social justice came from. Her parents had raised her to believe everyone should be equal, and given equal opportunities for success, but they believed in those things passively, while Erin was much more outspoken about them.

“Well, that’s good, Jake,” Mr. MacKay said, a wide smile on his face. He turned to Lisa. “And what are you going to do, pretty lady?”

“Oh, I’m going to decorate it. I’m studying Interior Design,” she responded with an airy giggle.

“Well, I think she already does,” Philip replied, staring at Lisa, who in turn blushed, a pink glow spreading up her cheeks. He winked at her before he collected their plates and walked towards the kitchen.

Mr. MacKay gestured to someone across the room and as soon as Philip was gone, he was replaced by another young man. Erin thought he was sort of goofy-looking in a dignified way, and she listened as the older man introduced him.

“Now, ladies, I’d like you to meet someone,” he said, his eyes flicking in Erin’s direction. She shot her mother a glance from the corner of her eye, and saw a satisfied smile on her face as she flicked her gaze between Erin and the young man.

“My grandson, Neil. He goes to Cornell School of Hotel Management.” The pride in Mr. MacKay’s voice was hard to miss, and Erin guessed that the young man would be next in line to run the Family Resort. She was beginning to grow annoyed at the owner’s obvious advertising for the resort staff.

“Oh, Baby’s starting college in the fall too, at Michigan State,” her father replied, nodding and waving his hand in her direction.

“That’s great,” Neil said, smiling nervously. Erin could barely contain an exasperated sigh. Her mother’s smile and her father’s gesture made it clear that they had set up the introduction for what they thought would be her benefit.

The annoyance that came along with this realization turned Erin’s mind back to the blonde woman again. She’d kept up a steady string of glances around the room, but hadn’t expected to see the other woman. Even still, she found herself dwelling on the details she’d been able to absorb for the few moments she’d been able to look at the other woman.

It wasn’t until the rest of her family was standing up and the table was being moved slightly to the side by Robbie and another waiter that she yanked her mind from its wandering. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head once, trying to clear thoughts of the other woman from it. She didn’t even know the blonde’s _name_ , for god’s sake, but she couldn’t stop her mind from straying to thoughts of her.

When she opened her eyes she noticed that her table was not the only one that had been moved, but that each of the tables had been pushed slightly aside to create an opening in the middle of the hall. The opening notes of a slow, jazzy song floated over the air and she groaned as Neil approached her family. The young man’s eyes flickered towards Erin’s father, and she caught the encouraging nod the older man flashed in his direction.

Neil stopped in front of her, extending his arm towards her and asking her if she’d like to dance. She bit back her instinctual response, instead offering nodding and offering a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She debated the use of telling her that she was most definitely not interested, in him or any man in general, but opted not to; she didn’t want something getting back to her father that she’d been _flaunting it_ , something he’d expressly asked her to avoid doing at the resort.

They made small talk as they danced, Erin wincing every few moments as Neil’s feet used her toes as a launch pad for his next step.

“So, you’re going to study physics next year?” Neil asked, smiling at her. “That sounds hard. What do you want to do?”

Erin paused for a few beats. She’d practiced a few different explanations for her major of choice, and wasn’t sure which one to use. She could be honest, or use a parent-approved reasoning, or make up something completely off-the-wall.

In the end, she decided to be honest. After all, she was never going to see him once the summer ended, she was sure of that.

“My best friend and I are going to prove the existence of the paranormal,” she responded simply, shrugging. There was a flash of defensiveness in her eyes though, and Neil responded to her unspoken challenge.

“The _paranormal_?” A laugh bubbled from his throat. “That’s a funny one, I’m sure you get a lot of people going with that. So, for real, why physics? Engineering?”

Erin remained still for a few beats as irritation welled up in her chest. Her rising annoyance was only bolstered as an elderly woman bumped into her from behind, knocking her off balance and making her step closer to Neil. He smiled, unaware of why she was suddenly gripping tighter. She rolled her eyes and sighed before responding, starting to move again.

“Wasn’t a joke, and besides, yes, engineering is an integral part of what I want to do!” She could feel the venom in her words as she spat them.

“So you’re going to be, what, a ghost hunter?” Neil contained his laughter with the question, but his words were laced with a mocking tone that only increased Erin’s annoyance with him.

She stepped back, unable to control herself any longer, and opened her mouth to respond. At that moment, the music shifted. The new song was more upbeat, and Erin felt Neil’s arms move to hold her in her spot.

“A tango! Come on!” Neil’s face was lit up with excitement, and even Erin couldn’t help but smile at the pure happiness written across his face.

They danced awkwardly for a few moments, Erin bopping awkwardly and off the beat, until the crowd on the dance floor parted to make way for a couple that cut their way through the crowd. Erin looked on in jealousy, watching their movements.

She recognized Penny from the dance lesson that afternoon. Erin watched the way her legs seemed to float over the wooden floorboards beneath her, even in heels that had to be at least five inches high. Her eyes travelled over the woman, following her movements. She twirled and leapt and slid, no part of her body still for more than a second or two. Erin was amazed.

Until her eyes drifted to Penny’s partner.

The blonde woman had materialized from her imagination to the dance floor in front of her. She had swapped the dark jeans for almost equally tight-fitting black pants and the black t-shirt for a fitted white collared shirt. A thin necktie hung at her neck. Her hair was still up in the same elaborate bun as earlier, but the sunglasses had been discarded and replaced with a pair of glasses.

Despite Penny being taller than her partner, the other blonde moved with grace and certainty, clearly leading the pair. Her movements were fluid, as if her bones themselves were flexible. She turned and flipped and slid the other woman as if her partner weighed nothing, lifting the other woman from the ground more than once.

Erin wasn’t sure if a second had passed or if she had stayed still and silent watching them dance for an hour. Without taking her eyes off of the dancers, she opened her mouth and asked Neil, “Who are they?”

“Oh, _them_. They’re the, ah…dance people. They’re here to…keep the guests happy,” he said, implying more than his words as he finished his sentence. Erin filled in the meaning in her mind, connecting it back to Mr. MacKay’s direct advice to the shorter woman that she had witnessed earlier.

Their dancing took on a more physical tone, Penny’s skirt twirling straight out from her body as the shorter woman turned her in place. Their movements became more sweeping and the crowd watching them backed up even further.

“Oh, they shouldn’t be showing off with each other. That’s not going to sell lessons,” Neil said angrily. Erin turned to notice the frown on his face and the hand placed firmly on his hip.

As if to spite his words, Penny threw one leg straight into the air in a sweeping kick before pushing it behind her and crouching low to the ground on her other leg.

Erin continued to stare, feeling herself getting more flustered the longer she watched. She couldn’t bring herself to tear her eyes away from the movement of the two women.

“Wait,” she almost yelled, reaching out to grip onto Neil’s wrist. “Why do they have two women doing that?”

He stared blankly at her. “What…dancing together?”

“Yes, of course, dancing together. Why is it two women? What, were there not any male dancers to partner with one of ‘em?” Erin was confused (but not complaining) as she watched the still-magical movements of the women who were now in front of where she was standing.

“Well, why not? It is the 21st century, after all. Plus, there’s a diversity aspect there, I guess, and Mr. MacKay capitalized on it. Amazing performances of physical and visual art, two dancers who just happen to be women. Not many places can say they offer that, can they?” Neil said with a shrug. “Plus, they’re the best dancers we have. Penny’s always been strong, and Jilly’s the best partner she’s danced with. She can keep up with her.”

As he spoke, Erin watched the dancers moved away from each other towards opposite ends of the dance floor. Disappointment fell over her as she thought the dance was over, but Penny took a few quick steps towards the other woman – had Neil said her name was _Jilly_? – who grabbed her by the waist and lifted her straight towards the ceiling before dropping her towards the floor and holding her still, in a pose that was almost an imitation of Superman.

Erin just nodded, unable to find anything to say back to him. She felt Neil become aware of the fact that she was now far too distracted by the women dancing to pay him much attention, so he changed the subject.

“I actually have to excuse myself,” he said, looking much sorrier about that fact than Erin felt. Relief seeped into her mind, but was cut short when Neil took another breath and continued. “I’m in charge of games tonight. Say, would you like to help me get things started?” He smiled expectantly.

Erin was on the brink of coming up with an excuse when her father cut in behind her. She had no idea how long he and her mother had been dancing there, or if they had watched her watch the blondes in the middle of the room, but he accepted Neil’s invitation on her behalf.

She groaned, a sound that was covered up by the band picking up another song. This one was slower, and she was suddenly grateful to be leaving before being forced through a slow dance with Neil. Instead, she allowed her brain to catalog and memorize everything she could remember from what she had just seen, wanting to keep the shorter blonde woman’s face in her mind for as long as possible.

The women danced through her mind as Neil explained the act for the night, a friendly magician who was doing some simple tricks. He went through the props the magician would use, but Erin focused on the concentration in the blonde’s eyes that contrasted sharply with the relaxed look that had been on her face. She paid enough attention to know when to nod and make agreeing noises, but it wasn’t until he was clapping a hand onto her shoulder that she started thinking she should listen more carefully.

She had just agreed to be sawed in half.

_Lovely_ , she thought to herself.

The act went well enough, she reflected afterwards. All she’d really done was smile out at the crowd and let her mind wander.

Back to the blonde, of course.

The act only lasted half an hour. She waited for her parents next to the stage, where they met her a few minutes after the show was over. Lisa had returned to the cabin after dinner, but Erin wanted to continue exploring around the property. After making her promise to be safe, her parents turned and walked away.

She made her way slowly out of the main hall, following the gravel paths wherever they led. She walked through the cabins, around the tables and chairs, umbrellas now folded down. Her mind wandered and she kept time by the beat of her heart and the soft, steady thump of her feet on the ground. She pulled her phone from her pocket and checked the time. 8:30.

She continued to wander aimlessly around the property, following a path, until she noticed a red fence with a green sign next to the path.

_Staff quarters, no guests, please_ was painted in white letters on the green background, inviting her to explore where she didn’t belong, almost taunting her.

She paused for less than a second before making up her mind and continuing on the path. It was deserted and dark, the small ground lights illuminating little pools of the path only, but she kept walking.

Being haunted by a ghost for a year could teach a person a thing or two about being scared.

As she walked, her footsteps were soon joined by the sound of music coming from somewhere in the distance. She quickened her pace, trying to find the source of the sounds. It was coming from a large building, visible up the path and through the trees ahead of her.

The path faded slowly from gravel to a wooden bridge, which she followed with her eyes until it became a staircase pressed into the side of a hill. At the top of it was the building that she recognized to be the source of the sound.

There was a figure making its way up the path, but Erin noticed it seemed to be struggling with the task. She called out to him, recognizing the young man who had helped her with her family’s bags earlier in the day.

“Hey!” she called out, speeding up to catch up with him.

“How’d you get here?!” he asked, turning slowly towards her. He held three large watermelons in his arms and was struggling to keep them from falling to the ground.

“I went for a walk,” she said simply. “Here, let me help you!” She reached for one of the fruits but he pulled away.

“No, go back! No guests allowed! House rules!” His arguments grew less convincing with each word. He eventually relinquished control of one of the watermelons to Erin, but made one last attempt at getting her to leave. “Why don’t you go back to the main house? I saw you dancing with the little boss man?” He swayed his hips along with his words, as well as he could with two large watermelons in his arms.

Erin rolled her eyes and scoffed. At his questioning look, she decided that there was no point trying to keep it a secret, and didn’t think there was much harm this employee could do.

“Don’t remind me. I’m a freaking lesbian,” she muttered.

He just laughed sympathetically. “I get it, I do. I’m gay too. Name’s Kevin,” he said, leaning slightly towards her with a shoulder since he couldn’t reach out a hand to shake.

“I’m Erin,” she said, laughing along with him. “But everyone calls me Baby, which is kind of weird, but I’m used to it.”

“Well, Erin, can you keep a secret? Your parents would kill you, and MacKay would kill _me_ ,” he said, readjusting the fruits in his arms. She nodded and he turned back up the path as she followed.

The volume of the music increased dramatically with each step they took towards the building. Kevin leaned against the doors and pushed, throwing them open and losing his balance in the process. He somehow managed to get both watermelons out of the fall unscathed, then grinned at Erin before turning back to the room.

It was a large room. All the furniture inside – tables and chairs, a couch, a refrigerator – has been pushed to the walls to leave as much space as possible. In the middle were countless bodies pressed together in pairs, all swaying smoothly to the music against each other.

The only music and dancing Erin had experienced since getting to the camp had been old, big band music, to keep up with the session’s theme. This music, however, was something she’d expect to hear at a club in the middle of a big city, and the dancing looked like it belonged in that setting, too. Bodies writhed together, skin to skin, hands roaming and gripping whatever they could touch.

Erin’s knees immediately turned to jelly at the sight. She couldn’t help but imagine the blonde woman wrapped around her like that, and she bit her lip to keep back a moan. The constant pulse of the music through her body didn’t help.

“Um, hello?” Kevin called to her from a few feet ahead. She gasped and walked towards him as he slipped between bodies across the dance floor. She was bumped and jostled and shoved as she followed the boy, but didn’t mind.

When they reached the other side of the room and set the watermelons down on a table, Erin took a breath and prepared to shout over the music.

“Well, I can see why there are no guests allowed!” She knew the hunger and curiosity would be clear in her eyes.

Kevin laughed again. “You wanna dance?”

Erin shook her head so quickly she swore she gave herself whiplash. Other employees were greeting Kevin or eyeing her with some suspicion, but most were too absorbed in their gyrations to even notice that the two of them had entered and crossed from one side of the room to another.

“Can you imagine doing this in the main house, right after the family foxtrot?” Kevin joked, and Erin shook her head, slowly this time. “MacKay would shut the place down first!”

He continued, but the next sentence was cut off by a cheer from the entire crowd. Heads turned and Erin’s gaze followed back to the set of doors. The two women who had stopped the show after dinner had returned, and were clearly a hit with the rest of the staff as well as the guests.

The shorter blonde woman had lost her jacket somewhere between the main house and the building they were in, and the tie around her neck had been loosened. Erin watched as she grabbed a beer from someone by the door and put it to her lips, tilting her head back to chug a few swallows before handing it back and taking Penny’s hand. The two shimmied to the middle of the room and started dancing again, combining the performance they had given at dinner with the movements that had filled the room before their arrival.

Kevin smirked, noticing that Erin’s gaze had settled on the blonde. “That’s my cousin, you know. Jilly Holtzmann. Real name’s Jillian. She got me the job here,” he told her.

She glanced back to the dance floor in time to see Penny turn halfway around. She pressed her back into Jilly’s front, bending at the knees so that her head was level with the woman behind her. Jilly’s hands snaked to her waist, their hips moving and circling together. They moved together as if they were one being, laughing and shouting things to the couples dancing around them.

Erin’s joints turned to jelly again as she watched, wanting nothing more than to be out there dancing with Jilly.

“Wow,” she breathed, barely tearing her eyes away from the dance floor. “They look great together.”

“Yeah,” Kevin agreed, nodding again.

“Are they…together?” Erin asked, ducking her head and hoping Kevin couldn’t guess the reason behind her question.

He laughed loud enough to draw the attention of the couples dancing closest to them. “No way! Penny ain’t even a lesbian!” The thought sent him into another fit of laughter before he took a deep breath. “Jilly totally is though. But no, they’re not together.”

Erin’s heart lifted a fraction of an inch at that news. At least now she knew she was free to stare and fantasize for two and a half weeks without worrying that she was doing so to someone else’s girlfriend.

She watched as Penny leapt up and held on to the other woman’s waist with her knees. She slowly bent backwards at her hips, leaning so far back her hair almost touched the ground, as Jilly held her hips firmly. It made Erin’s mouth go dry.

Penny hopped down but the couple continued to move together in time to the music until it faded into a new song. Erin watched Jilly dance around with a few women, moving through the crowd. Each step brought her closer to Kevin and Erin, who stared at her feet.

She hopped the last few feet, slamming her feet down and making the man jump. “Yo cuz!” she laughed out, her voice the same sensual tone that Erin remembered from earlier. She looked closer at the woman from beneath her bangs.

The glasses Erin had seen earlier were actually, upon closer inspection, yellow-lensed goggles. Her eyes were bright and clear behind them, and even through the yellow glass, Erin can see they’re bright blue. She was a little shorter than Erin, and her clothes hugged her body in a perfectly revealing way. It made Erin’s heart race and mouth water.

Jilly’s smile is wide even as she nods her head in Erin’s direction. The action sent heat spreading to every inch of Erin’s body.

“What’s she doing here?” Jilly frowns at Kevin. “You know that’s against the rules.”

“She’s with me. She came with me. And besides, when have you ever listened to the rules?” he scoffed at his cousin.

Erin managed to push a command from her brain to her mouth and cut in. “I carried a watermelon,” she offered helpfully.

Kevin snorted at her, but pointed to the three huge watermelons on the table. Jilly followed his gesture, then rolled her eyes. She grabbed the beer that Kevin had picked up and pressed it to her lips, downing half the bottle in a few sips. Then she turned, leading with her hips, and shimmied back towards the dance floor, Erin’s eyes following her every move.

_I carried a watermelon_? she thought to herself.

Even in her head, it sounded lame. She rolled her eyes and tried to lose herself in the music, dancing with Kevin, but the thought of those bright blue eyes wouldn’t leave her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for the positive feedback on the first chapter. The kind comments and encouragement made my whole week and really helped me write this, too.  
> Now for this chapter! Thank you for reading! If you loved it or hated it, let me know on Tumblr (anothercaffeinatedlesbian) why it was great or awful. I hope you enjoyed it!


	3. now that i can dance (sort of)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erin watches Jilly dance, then joins her on the dance floor.

Erin swayed and bopped through a few songs, moving her hips and arms along with the music the best she could. Kevin helped her, although she knew she was probably borderline hopeless. He showed her how to move her arms and hips in time to the beats that were thumping from speakers hidden throughout the open room. She tried to mirror his actions but felt how erratic and awkward her movements were. His joints were smooth and fluid; hers were sharp and jerky.

She watched the rest of the dancers too, and tried to mirror some of the things they did. Eventually her hips fell into something that she thought might look like a rhythm, and Kevin laughed as she threw her arms into the mix, raising them above her head. The room was warm enough for her to feel sweat beading across her forehead and down her back, but she was enjoying herself enough to not mind.

The music changed and the dancers throughout the room started to move together, shifting to form two lines with a few feet of space in between, each couple watching each other from across the space. Kevin tugged on her hand and pulled her towards the dance floor but she yanked her arm back, staying as close to the wall as possible. He just shrugged and walked out into the crowd.

The lines moved and changed constantly throughout the song, as the end pair would meet in the middle of the space between and dance their way down the aisle. Erin smiled as she watched them, continuing her own small dance.

The movements of the dancers steadily became more explicit as the couples continued to move. Hands brushed across breasts and up thighs, catching skirt hems and pushing them up along the way. Skin was revealed everywhere, and the sight of it made Erin weak in the knees. She made sure to carefully follow the beat that was pouring into her ears and thudding through her chest, if only so that she stayed standing instead of crumbling to the floor. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so turned on, especially not in a room full of other people.

The last couple to make their way down the aisle was, of course, Penny and Jilly. Many of the other couples had moved to other places in the open space when they’d finished their solo dance, but some remained behind to watch the resort’s main attraction.

Every movement flowed into the next. The women danced seamlessly again, each seeming to be an extension of the other. Jilly raised an arm above her head and Penny spun under it, into her. She wrapped her arms around the taller woman, sliding down her body before sliding up, dragging the edge of her dress along up her thigh.

Erin couldn’t help but picture herself in Penny’s place. She felt her cheeks flushed, both from the warmth of the room and from the fantasies playing out in her mind.

The pair reached the end of the aisle as the music ended. They hugged each other tightly and laughed as the next song picked up. Penny walked off, still moving in time to the music, dancing with herself. Jilly turned, but Kevin appeared behind her at that moment. He leaned down and whispered something into the blonde’s ear. Erin tried to read his lips. She couldn’t make out what he said, but whatever it was caused Jilly’s face to split into a satisfied smirk.

The blonde grabbed the new beer that Kevin had opened and pressed it to her lips. She flicked out her tongue to catch the last few drops that remained there after she handled the bottle back. Erin felt another blush that definitely had nothing to do with the temperature of the room creep over her.

She turned away from Kevin and danced on her own for a few beats as the boy made his way back across the dance floor towards Erin. He stopped next to her and leaned into her with his shoulder. He was warm and sticky from dancing, and Erin laughed and pushed him away.

“Dude, that’s kind of gross, you know,” she said.

“I know,” he said, glancing at her for a second before his gaze returned to the dance floor. Erin followed his stare and it landed on Jilly, who was still shaking her hips for no one else but herself. Her mind was burning with curiosity for what Kevin had whispered into the blonde’s hear, but she would never ask.

As if he had looked that way knowing she would follow, he laughed. Then, as if he had read her mind, he leaned over and said, “I told her you play for her team. She’s going to ask you to dance.”

Erin felt her body go cold as the blood in her veins turned icy. She blinked rapidly and stared at him, openmouthed.

“Well, I knew you weren’t going to make a move,” he shrugged. “And you weren’t exactly subtle. I just…pushed things along.” The smile in his voice was easily detectable. As if on cue, the music cut again, and Erin watched from the corner of her eye as Jilly shook out her limbs but did not start dancing to the new song. Erin glanced at Kevin, who smirked.

Her heartbeat, already thudding heavily between her dancing and the arousal that was coursing through her body, picked up as Jilly turned on her heel and made her way towards where Erin was standing. She exaggerated her movements and facial expressions, which made Erin smile weakly. The other woman stopped close enough for Erin to smell her perfume before lifting her arm and crooking her finger, gesturing for Erin to follow her with a smile. She did.

The blonde stood close enough for Erin to touch just by putting her hand out.

“You gotta bend-bend your knees,” Jilly’s voice was soft in her ear. Erin felt a pressure on her shoulders before realizing Jilly’s hands were pushing her gently down. “And down.”

She started moving her hips in a circular motion. Erin followed her movements, trying to watch each body part at once to translate them to her own body. She just got distracted as her eyes moved over dark clothes that weren’t revealing but still didn’t leave much to the imagination. Jilly laughed.

“Watch my eyes,” she said, her voice still soft, but with an edge of laughter still present. Her hand was on Erin’s cheek and there was a finger underneath her chin, raising Erin’s head slightly so that their eyes were locked. She shifted her hands to Erin’s hips and pulled her closer. Her hips thrust into Erin’s with each rotation. She felt heat pooling throughout her body and turning her insides to jelly.

“That’s good,” Jilly smiled at her as Erin continued to focus on her movements. “That’s better!”

Erin’s arms dangled uselessly at her sides and her fingers twitched along with the music. She suddenly felt awkward, unsure of what do to with her limbs. She missed a beat as she tried to incorporate them into her dance, and tried to fall back into the music.

Jilly laughed again, and Erin went weak at the sound, even if she heard it as a result of her awkward attempts to dance. She expected more instruction as the blonde grinned widely up at her, but Jilly didn’t open her mouth. Instead, she took Erin’s hands and placed them on her own hips.

Erin felt her fingers start to shake and she pressed them into Jilly’s hips to stop it. The edge of her white shirt had slipped out from the waistline of her pants, and Erin’s thumb brushed against her hip. The woman’s skin burned and Erin bit back another moan as her eyes drifted closed for a moment.

Erin was in blissful peace for a second. She was pressed against Jilly, whose fingers were squeezing at Erin’s hips in time with the music that washed over both of them. She almost lost herself in the moment before her eyes snapped open and she focused on Jilly’s.

The look on the other woman’s face was a combination of excited amusement and pure joy. Her eyes were wide and her red-stained lips were spread in a grin. If it was possible for Erin to have melted any more, she would have.

The song slowed and then morphed into a new beat. Jilly took a step back, shifting to follow the new beat as she did so. Erin expected the woman to drift away, back towards Penny or another staff member. Instead, she stopped, only two feet from Erin.

“Now move this way,” she said, dropping her eyes downwards. “Watch.”

Erin’s gaze followed and she took in what the woman was doing with her hips, swaying them in larger, slower circles. Erin thought she was matching the woman’s movements, falling into the rhythm of the song, but Jilly just giggled again and took a step back towards Erin.

She continued to move her hips in a circular motion and held her arms slightly out and forward, nestling Erin’s. She laid a hand along Erin’s ribs. The action allowed her to control Erin’s movements a little more and each circle brought her closer to matching Erin’s pace to hers. Erin took a small but bold step into Jilly’s space until their bodies were pressed together again.

Jilly’s smile cracked wider. With one hand still on Erin’s ribs, she used the other to lift Erin’s arm back around her neck.

Erin’s body and mind went into overdrive at the contact. It was as if every nerve ending in her body exploded at once, and her brain couldn’t handle the overload of information it was suddenly receiving. She wrapped the arm Jilly hadn’t touched up behind her neck as well, both to anchor herself and to keep pace with the dancer’s movements. The blonde leaned into Erin’s embrace and placed her hands back on Erin’s hips.

They circled and gyrated their hips, bodies moving together like Erin had watched the other pairs doing. It wasn’t possible for their bodies to be pressed closer together. Erin’s forehead bumped against the other woman’s, and she darted her eyes towards Jilly’s, still hidden behind the yellow lenses.

The music quieted and the world around her stilled the moment her eyes met Jilly’s. The contact only lasted a moment, but Erin felt a full spectrum of sensations in that second: excitement, nervousness, doubt, lust, happiness, comfort, and safety. Her mind was swimming in emotions and she knew each of them would be visible in her eyes. She recognized the same range in Jilly’s before the blonde blinked and started to bop her head to the music.

Her pulse pounded through her body, mingling with the thump of the music. She was warm all over, from dancing and the other bodies in the room and the woman who was now running her hands over every inch of Erin she could reach.

Jilly’s fingers left trails of flame across Erin’s skin. She thought she could combust on the spot, and it was all she could do to hold on to the other woman’s neck. Each movement of their bodies pressed their hips together. The contact was enough to make Erin’s head spin. She breathed in Jilly’s perfume, wanting to lock the scent in her mind for as long as possible.

The song faded out and Erin bit her lip nervously, unsure if the woman would want to spend another song with her. Jilly just blinked at her in the beat of silence between the song’s ending and the next one beginning. As the opening notes faded into the room, though, another smile spread across her lips.

They were still locked in an embrace, Erin’s arms around the other woman’s neck. Jilly moved her hands from where they were running over the bare skin of Erin’s back revealed by the low cut of her dress and she immediately missed the pressure. She felt her heart sink, sure the woman was going to dance away as easily as she’d approached Erin.

But rather than leave, Jilly put one hand on a hip and pushed gently. Erin caved to the pressure and shifted as the blonde moved around her body until her breasts and hips were pressed into Erin’s back. Erin felt hands on her hips again and she covered them with her own.

She pressed her ass slightly backwards into Jilly’s hips and the other woman pressed forward, equally eager. Erin bit her lip to stop a moan from sliding out, although she was sure the other woman wouldn’t be able to hear anything she said unless it was half-yelled right into her ear. She could feel Jilly’s breath against the skin of her shoulder.

The blonde began moving her hands, tapping her fingers against Erin’s body in time to the music. She moved her hands along Erin’s arms, tracing her fingers from her wrist to her shoulders. She ran them over Erin’s sides, brushing the underside of her breasts with her thumbs. She ran them down her stomach to her upper thighs, grabbing the material of her dress in her fingers and shifting it up.

Erin lost herself in the music once again, the combined stimulation of everything happening around her along with the feeling of the other woman’s hands on her body almost too much for her to handle. Her body was on fire; she was sure of it. The muscles in her legs screamed from bending and moving, but she ignored it, continuing to dance.

She felt Jilly twirling her around again so that they were face-to-face. The other woman’s legs were on either side of Erin’s and her hands had resumed their posts on each of Erin’s hips. The blonde shot Erin a thoughtful look, which was quickly replaced by a wicked grin.  
She leaned in, close to Erin’s ear. Her voice was soft and the warm breath tickled over her ear as she murmured, “Do you trust me?”

She pulled back to look into Erin’s eyes again. She nodded before croaking out a ‘yes.’

The blonde’s grin widened even more before she adjusted her position in front of Erin. She wrapped an arm around her back and held it her.

“Good,” she heard Jilly whisper into her ear before the blonde took Erin’s hand and dropped her into a dip so dramatic she thought she would be looking at a roomful of knees if she had managed to take her eyes from the blonde’s face.

A few wisps of blonde hair had come loose from Jilly’s bun and curled around her face, falling towards Erin. Her mouth was wide in a thrilled smile as she lifted Erin back upright. Jilly had timed it perfectly, and the music faded out as Erin straightened out the hem of her skirt around her knees.

Jilly stepped back towards her as the next song started. Every inch of Erin’s skin was covered in damp sweat, and Jilly’s forehead glistened in the dim light. Jilly placed her hands firmly on Erin’s hips, but instead of starting to move with the music, the blonde just rested her forehead against Erin’s, who let out a shaky breath of laughter.

Jilly only stayed still for a second, her fingers soon tapping a rhythm against Erin’s waist. Erin just stood still, catching her breath as the room moved around them.

“ _Nice_ ,” Jilly sighed, breaking the silence first. “Thanks for the dance, cutie.”

“No, ah, thank _you_ , for the…lesson?” Erin replied, still panting.

Jilly lifted her head with a smile, staring into Erin’s eyes for a few seconds. Then, she tilted her head back towards Erin’s and pressed a kiss to the still-damp skin just below her earlobe.

The action sent electricity flowing through Erin’s body, pooling at her core, and she snapped her lips shut a moment too late to keep the moan to herself. Jilly grinned again.

“I’m Jilly,” the blonde whispered, her voice low and sensual. She had continued to caress Erin’s sides while they stood still, and her movements grew bolder with each pass, until she was barely stopping at Erin’s breast.

Erin was sure she could have powered an entire city block with the electricity that was flowing through her veins.

No sooner had the words passed the woman’s red lips than she was dancing away through the crowd, eyes locked on Erin’s.

“Wait! I’m Erin!” she called after the woman.

Jilly just laughed. “I know,” she responded, then turned into the crowd and disappeared.

Not willing to stay on the dance floor alone for long, Erin scanned the crowd for Kevin’s head. She found him easily and pushed her way through the mass of bodies that had only seemed to grow since she had arrived.

“Leaving so soon?” he said after she pulled him aside to say goodnight and thank him for letting her crash the party.

“If I’m not back soon my parents will probably literally murder me. It’s already… _11:00_?” Her eyes widened in shock as she glanced at her phone.

Kevin just laughed and nodded before walking her towards the door. “You can get back from here, right?”

“Yeah, it’s not a far walk,” Erin gestured towards the path. “And thanks. For letting me crash the party…” Her voice faded out on its own.

“Yeah? For anything else?” he prompted, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

She felt the blush creep up towards her cheeks, which had just lost their red from dancing. She just nodded mutely. He laughed and softly punched her shoulder before bidding her goodnight and slipping back into the packed building.

Erin made her way back through the camp slowly, replaying every moment from the past few hours in her head. The cool air was a relief around her still-warm skin. Her body was still alive, and every action that had caused heat to course through her veins brought back the same sensations as she remembered them. She felt the heat building between her legs with each step, making her groan as her family’s cabin appeared in her line of sight.

Half an hour later, she was sprawled in her bed, smiling to herself as she thought back on her dances with Jilly.

The spot on her neck where Jilly had pressed her lips still burned, and she held onto the feeling until she finally slipped into an exhausted slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, I'm (kind of) sorry that it's taken me 11,000 words to get through the first half an hour of the movie, but this is shaping up to be a bit of a long one because I can't stop.  
> And second. I cannot say how thankful I am to each of you who has taken the time not only to read this, but leave the kindest comments and kudos on it. I was so nervous to write this but your reactions have been so encouraging and now I can't stop. I'm on tumblr (anothercaffeinatedlesbian) if you want to visit me there and tell me why you love it or don't love it!


	4. i look at you and i fantasize you're mine tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erin still can't stop thinking about Jilly, even when they're both dancing with someone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter doesn't really follow the movie, but that's how I have to write it. I'm sorry if it's a little slow, but the next few should be better!

Erin woke up the next morning to her sister tossing a pillow onto her head and shouting about breakfast. She slowly sat up in her bed, dropping the covers to her waist. Every muscle below her shoulders screamed with each movement. She swung her legs around and set her feet on the floor, unsure that her legs would even support her. A soft groan escaped her lips as she shifted her weight from the bed.

“Dude, what’s up with you?” Lisa shot her a questioning look as Erin stretched her arms above her head.

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head and doing her best to bend down to drag her suitcase out from under the bed. She hissed as she pulled herself back up.

“Where were you last night? You…well, you need a shower,” Lisa wrinkled her nose for emphasis.

Erin rolled her eyes. “I got sucked into helping that Neil weenie with his game night. They sawed me in half,” she said, trying to express as much annoyance in her voice as she was beginning to feel for the young man.

“Yeah, but I mean after that. Mom and pop came back after the show,” Lisa stepped closer to her sister, scanning her eyes over Erin’s face for any sign of a lie that she could use against her to their parents.

“I went for a walk. I just wanted to check out the camp and see what was around. And then I fell down a path. Which is why I’m so sore,” Erin was proud of the excuse that she’d come up with on the spot.

Her sister shrugged at her, then went back to putting her makeup on. “We’re going to breakfast in…” she glanced at her watch. “45 minutes now. Just so you know.”

Erin sighed and pulled a towel from her suitcase before walking slowly into the bathroom, each step stretching the tight muscles in her legs painfully. She ran the shower as hot as she could handle, letting the water flow over her body and hoping it would loosen her muscles.

She ran her own hands softly over her skin as she washed the sweat from the night before from her skin. Her mind soon drifted back to how the other woman’s hands had been touching the same spots just twelve hours before and she felt a sudden rush of arousal through her body.

Suddenly the warm water and confined space were too much for Erin. She felt trapped. Her hand shot out and twisted the handle until the water ran cool, almost cold, over her. It shocked her system and her mind went blank.

She was shivering by the time she stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her body. Her muscles were slightly looser and she moved back into her shared bedroom without making pained noises.

Lisa chattered about the waiter from the previous night, Philip, and Erin half-listened while she dug through her suitcase for clothes. She eventually settled on white shorts and a navy top, which she slipped into before turning her attention back to her suitcase in an attempt to excavate the small bag of makeup she knew was buried somewhere in its depths.

Erin had never put much effort into her looks, instead choosing to fade into the background of whatever situation she found herself in at any given moment. A dash of eyeliner and a swipe of mascara every so often had gotten her through high school, but she stationed herself in front of the mirror that her sister had recently vacated and scrutinized what was reflected back at her.

Her hair was a light brown and fell straight to her shoulders, bangs straight across her forehead. Her blue eyes stared back at her as she leaned in towards the mirror and applied her makeup. She ran a brush through her hair and stood back, feeling relatively confident in how she looked for the day.

“Baby, we’re leaving for breakfast! Are you coming?” Her mother’s voice floated through the bedroom’s open window from somewhere outside the cabin. Erin tossed her cell phone and the book she’d been reading the previous day into a bag along with some sunscreen and slung it over her shoulder as she walked out of the cabin.

She managed to focus on the conversation her parents were having as they walked back up to the main hall for breakfast. They discussed their plans for the day and the various activities that would be going on and Erin chimed in when appropriate, although none of the things they brought up – including charades, volleyball, and golf – held her interest in the least.

The family took their place at the same table they’d used for dinner the night before. The first half of the meal passed peacefully in Erin’s eyes, until her father asked her what time she’d come back to the cabin the night before.

“Oh, it was around, um, 11, I think,” she said, not meeting his eyes. Her curfew throughout high school had been 9:30 and she’d never thought to break it, mainly because she only left her house once every few weeks and, for the most part, she only ever went to Abby’s anyway.

To her surprise, her father just nodded. “Okay, well, I’m glad you were safe. If you’re going to do that, please be careful.”

She agreed, inwardly sighing in relief, both at the fact that he hadn’t asked her to stay in the cabin for the rest of the session as well as the fact that he hadn’t asked her specifically where she’d gone.

Erin passed the rest of the morning sprawled in a lounge chair on the shore of the lake after she slathered herself in sunscreen. The sun was pleasantly warm as she flipped through a few more chapters in her book, continuing to make notes in the margins. She was hunched over the book, scrawling a long note on applying a theory to capturing electrovoice phenomena when a shadow moved over her. She glanced up, annoyance written in her face, to see her sister standing next to her chair.

“Mom says you have to do something today,” Lisa rolled her eyes at being her sister’s keeper. “I’m going to the wig show. Can you just come with me so she leaves me alone?”

Erin groaned but agreed, hoping that her parents would see her participate and leave her alone for the rest of the day. She carefully marked her page and shut her book before scanning the crowd that had gathered around her.

Her father was involved in a card game with Mr. MacKay at one of the tables that sat in the grass between the gravel path and the sandy shore of the lake. Her mother was already sitting at a long table that had been loaded with wigs of every hair color, cut, and style. Chairs lined the table and mirrors were placed every few feet. Erin picked a chair close to her mother and Lisa sat directly between them, grabbing for one of the wigs immediately.

A wave of recognition passed through Erin as she spotted Penny standing at the head of the table. The woman’s voice was as excited as it had been during the dance lesson the day before as she began explaining the history of wigs and the various modern uses of the ‘beauty tool.’

Despite her resistance, Erin had soon tried on half a dozen wigs. Penny moved slowly around the table, helping the women position their hairpieces and encouraging them to have fun with things. She chatted with a few of the women as she passed them.

She stopped when she reached Erin’s chair, exclaiming that the wig she was fiddling with – just a darker brown version of Erin’s real hair – suited her perfectly.

“Wait a second, it’s just not lying flat here, it’s all bunched up,” she said, bending closer to inspect the wig. Erin felt the blonde’s fingers at the base of her neck and it distracted her from noticing that the woman had bent over to whisper into Erin’s ear.

“Jilly won’t stop talking about your little dance last night.” The words sent a tingle down Erin’s spine even as her mouth fell open in disbelief that the blonde had experienced anything remarkable or worth sharing in Erin’s performance. She felt a warm blush spreading up her neck to her cheeks and quickly glanced the other direction, towards where her sister was sitting.

Thankfully, Lisa was too absorbed in trying on every wig she could grab to have paid any attention to the blonde. Penny laughed as she straightened up and moved on, stopping to talk to Erin’s mother and compliment her on how the wig she had on made her look ten years younger.

Erin heard the same voice that had crackled through the speaker system the previous afternoon float over the camp again, telling resort guests about a softball game that would be starting in a few minutes. The speaker clicked off and music drifted back over the grounds.

Philip materialized behind Lisa, who giggled and blushed as he placed his hand between her shoulders and leaned down between the two girls.

He said something about tips and money for a car. Erin didn’t catch the make or model, and didn’t really care to know, but her sister’s eyes grew wide as she turned towards the young man and mentioned that it was her favorite car. Erin rolled her eyes as he stood up and sauntered off.

“Ladies, you _all_ look _very_ lovely,” a low voice carried over the table. Erin recognized it without looking up the second it hit her ears. It sent shockwaves through her body and she raised her eyes to where Penny was standing, now accompanied by Jilly. Her cheeks glowed red.

Her hand flew to tug the wig from her head, leaving her hair in disarray and causing Jilly to flash her a smile. She blushed even brighter as she ran her fingers through her hair, trying to coax it back to lying flat.

She was still distracted by the blonde’s presence and grin, but focused on Lisa’s voice saying her name. “Baby, would you cover for me tonight? Tell mom and pop I went to lie down?” Her sister continued to adjust the short, dark wig on her head.

“Well, where are you going?” Erin asked, even though she already knew the answer. Her eyes were still trained on Jilly as she talked to Penny. Almost every word from the shorter blonde’s mouth was accentuated with a movement, her hands cutting through the air in every direction. She didn’t stand still but shifted between bouncing on the balls of her feet and bobbing at her knees or rocking back and forth from one foot to the other.

“To the golf course. There’s a pretty view from the first tee,” her sister said as she switched out the wig for yet another style.

Erin simply nodded and agreed, still too focused on watching the woman at the end of the table. She felt her stomach clench as Jilly turned and walked around the table. The blonde made a point to stop and compliment every single one of the women, similar to what Penny had done earlier, but punctuated with jokes or suggestions of which one they should pick next.

Erin’s heart started pounding in her chest when the other woman stopped at her mother’s shoulder. She said something about how the color of the wig brought out the color of her mother’s eyes, but Erin was too worried that someone would hear her pulse thudding to pick up the exact words.

Jilly stopped behind Lisa, who was now fitting a wig with long, red hair onto her head. The blonde’s hands drifted towards Lisa’s head and helped her straighten out the locks that framed her face, complimenting her as well.

Erin was sure both of the women could feet her heartbeat reverberating outwards, but neither seemed to notice. Jilly stepped back and shifted down to the next chair, stopping right behind Erin.

The woman’s gentle fingers on her shoulders sent chills down her spine and raised goosebumps on her arms. She hadn’t picked out another wig since removing the previous one.

“What, all finished already?” she asked Erin softly.

“Well, I just wasn’t sure which look to go for next,” she replied, surprised at the lack of trembling in her voice. She turned her head and smiled at the other woman.

“How about…. oh, _this_ one,” Jilly said, leaning over Erin and across the table. The pressure of the other woman’s body arching over her back made her shiver. Jilly pulled back and straightened up, a wig with curls nearly the same shade as Erin’s hair in her hands. “I think you’d look good in curls.”

Jilly’s hands were gentle as she worked the wig onto Erin’s head then bent down so that both women were reflected back in the mirror. She just smiled before tilting her head slightly towards Erin’s.

“Yeah, you do,” she whispered into her ear before pressing a quick kiss to the same spot as the night before.

Erin’s eyes darted towards her sister and mother, but the two were deep in conversation with each other about the practicality of turning Lisa’s dark locks into the red shade of the wig she still hadn’t removed, instead making various faces at herself in the mirror.

Before Erin could thank her, the woman was already standing up, continuing her circle of the table until she reached Penny again. Erin watched all of her movements. Her body never seemed to stop moving somehow – a finger tapping against the table, a foot shaking against the ground. All of her movements also seemed as fluid and effortless as when she danced.

Jilly leaned in to kiss Penny on the cheek, and Erin’s stomach clenched with something like jealousy, even though she knew the women weren’t together. With the span of a heartbeat, though, Jilly had glanced back in her direction and caught her eye. She was biting her lip, and Erin thought that if she hadn’t been sitting down she would have fallen over. Jilly winked at her and smiled before turning and walking away.

It took Erin a few moments to collect herself and calm the heat that was pulsing through her veins. By the time she managed to slow her heartbeat, the session was over, and she gathered a few wigs to help Penny pack up.

Having satisfied her mother’s wish and participated in something, she resumed her post in the lounge chair and reached for her book. It was near noon, and the sun was high overhead. The water of the lake shimmered in the light. The book soon sat in Erin’s lap, forgotten once again as she stared out over the water.

Her mind wandered once again back to the dance floor the night before. The extent of Erin’s comfort with dancing was the Chicken Dance; her movements and actions when dancing with the blonde woman were something she’d never allowed herself to do before. She’d felt free, and she was longing to have that feeling back again. The want to dance again was second only to her desire to be pressed against Jilly the way she’d been.

She lost track of time as her mind roamed. She drifted through daydream after daydream, many of which featured Jilly in various stages of undress and resulted in her arousal mounting to an intense level. At some point, she’d succumbed to exhaustion and dozed off on her chair, daydreams shifting to real dreams that still featured the other woman.

Lisa had shaken her awake to tell her that she was going back to the cabin but Erin stayed by the lake. The sun had crept closer to the trees that lined the lake before she stretched and stood up, tucking her phone and book bag into her bag and slinging it over her shoulder.

Erin walked back to the cabin slowly, wondering what was for dinner and regretting her earlier decision to skip lunch. She opened the cabin door quietly, hoping to slip in without her parents noticing, but her father was sitting in the living area and asked her where she’d been all afternoon.

“Oh, still by the lake. I may have dozed off for a while,” she shrugged. His brows furrowed into a frown, but he just nodded and smiled. Erin turned to go change.

Her sister was already planted firmly in front of the mirror when Erin walked into their bedroom. She was applying a new layer of makeup and barely glanced up as Erin dove back into her suitcase.

She pulled out a light blue dress and slipped into it. Her hair tickled her shoulders when she moved, and she quickly tried to tame it with her fingers before giving up and digging a brush out of her suitcase. She wiped the makeup from earlier in the day from her eyes and reapplied it with a little more care once Lisa moved. A few minutes later, she stepped back and took in her whole reflection, again satisfied with her results.

A call from the living room told her that the rest of her family was ready to leave for dinner. Erin tugged a thin white sweater around her shoulders before leaving the room. Her mother glanced towards her as she exited the room, and a wide smile spread across her face.

“Oh, Baby, don’t you look nice? This is the second day in a row you’re wearing a dress! Any reason?” The delight in her mother’s voice was clear, and Erin’s thoughts automatically drifted back to Neil. Her stomach plummeted, but she just pasted a tight smile on her face and shrugged.

She mostly listened through dinner that night. Her father discussed the card game he’d been involved in for most of the day with Mr. MacKay and a few of the other men from camp, and her mother and Lisa gushed about the wigs they’d tried on and the new hairstyles they’d both walked away from the session wanting to try out.

Philip cleared their plates away and Erin tried to ignore the sleazy feeling he gave her. As he walked away with their dishes, Mr. MacKay appeared at their table.

“Are you all coming down to the gazebo after dinner? The dance instructors always hold a group dance, I’d love for you all to be there,” he said, clapping Erin’s father on the shoulder.

“Well, sure, I suppose we can go,” her father said, looking at his wife. “What about you girls?”

Erin opened her mouth, but Lisa cut her off. “I’m not feeling too well,” she said quietly. “I think I’ll just go lie down, if that’s okay. I’m not really feeling up to dancing tonight.”

Erin remembered the conversation with her sister earlier in the day, thankful that she would no longer have to cover for her to their parents. At the same time, she groaned inwardly, wondering how she would be able to avoid Neil, who was sure to be at the gazebo, and still keep her parents happy.

An hour later, she was walking down the path to the gazebo, trailing slightly behind her parents. She listened to the gravel crunch beneath her feet, excitement mingling with the dread that was growing with every step. Music drifted towards her, carried on the slight breeze that blew off the lake.

The gazebo was already a little crowded when they arrived, and she took her place between her parents near the fence. Mr. MacKay soon positioned himself next to her father and watched the scene in front of them.

Couples dotted the dance space, swaying their hips slowly to the old-timey songs that tumbled from a speaker system. Erin noticed Kevin was in charge of the music, and he waved at her when he spotted her looking. She grinned and waved back before scanning her eyes over the crowd.

Her eyes came to rest on the blonde woman who she had looked over so many times in her imagination that her figure was now familiar to Erin, despite only truly seeing her a few times. She had on black pants similar to the ones she’d worn the night before, but her shirt was also dark. A red tie stuck out against the dark shirt, matching red suspenders over her shoulders.

She was dancing with someone else, a woman whose back Erin could only see until the pair turned. The other woman looked to be slightly older than Erin. She took in short, dark hair and green eyes. Pale skin was sprinkled with freckles across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks. She had a kind smile. Erin watched Jilly’s mouth move and the woman laughed, the movement making her eyes twinkle in the light from the lanterns overhead.

Erin’s heart skipped a beat. She knew being jealous was silly – after all, Jilly was a dance instructor. She would be dancing with other people all week. Erin had no room and no reason to feel jealous, but she did.

She had never believed in love at first sight, but knew very well that lust and intrigue were all too common after just a glance. But there was something about Jilly that made Erin want more, not only more of Jilly but more than she had ever wanted from another person. She ran over the range of feelings Jilly had elicited from her the night before, and even earlier in that day, as she watched them.

No one had ever turned her on as much as the blonde did, and she felt arousal coursing through her body again, just from watching the woman dance with someone else across the floor.

Her eyes stayed locked on the couple as they danced, ignoring the rest of the world around her. It wasn’t until the woman in Jilly’s arms was calling out to Mr. MacKay that she noticed how close the couple had drifted to where she was standing.

“Look, Keller, aren’t my dance lessons paying off?” The woman’s voice was high and sharp over the soft flow of the music. It grated on Erin’s ears before she scolded herself, knowing the annoyance at the woman came from somewhere else.

“You look great, Jen,” he called, smiling at her. “Terrific!” The older man turned towards Erin’s father before continuing in a low voice. “That’s Jennifer Smith. One of the Rest and Rechargers. They come here alone for a month at a time, just to get away from work. No family, though. It’s sad.”

Her father nodded in agreement at the woman’s implied loneliness, but Erin didn’t think she seemed that lonely as she swayed and moved along with Jilly. A closer look revealed dancing that wasn’t exactly dancing, but mostly just sensual hip-swaying and breast-shaking. Erin rolled her eyes but continued to stare.

She pulled her eyes away from the pair for the second time as Neil approached the women. He wrapped a hand firmly around Jilly’s arm and tugged her way from Jennifer, who looked slightly put out. Erin couldn’t make out what he said, but an angry scowl formed on Jilly’s face. She watched the woman’s lips as they moved. She thought she saw them form the word _Penny_. Neil rolled his eyes and Jilly crossed her arms as he turned in Erin’s direction.

Erin’s eyes were still on Jilly as the woman’s gaze followed Neil’s back to where Erin was standing. She recognized a flash of something across the other woman’s face, something that maybe looked like jealousy in a way, but Erin wasn’t sure. She let her eyes drift away from Jilly, who was now turning back to Jennifer, and focused on Neil.

Like the night before, he held out his arm to her. A gentle, but firm, hand on her back pushed her forward slightly and before she could determine if it had been her father or her mother, Neil was mistaking the involuntary movement for excitement and taking both of her hands to lead her to the dance floor.

As if the situation hadn’t been bad enough, he stopped at the first open space he could find, which happened to be directly next to Jilly and Jennifer. Erin tried to force her mind into focusing on Neil. He made it easier by stepping on her feet just as often as he had the night before, but still, she couldn’t help the way her eyes drifted to her right every few beats.

She caught the blonde staring back at her a few times, the gaze making her knees go weak. When this happened, she tightened her grip on Neil’s shoulders. He misinterpreted these actions as well and pulled her closer. She was close enough to rest her head on his shoulder and she did. Although it was uncomfortable, it gave her an opportunity to watch Jilly for longer periods of time, so she took the loss of dancing with the boy, pretending she was wrapped up in the blonde’s arms instead.

The blonde continued to glance in her direction, and more than once, Erin couldn’t stop herself from wondering if maybe the blonde wasn’t wishing the woman in her arms was Erin, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really can't describe how happy the positive reactions to this story have made me. I never expected people to actually like this story, thank you all so much! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I'm sorry if it was a little slow, but the next few should be better!


	5. the dumbest idea i've ever heard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erin witnesses something in the kitchen and ends up being enlisted as Jilly's dance partner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the patience! This section took me a little while, but I hope you enjoy it. Also, as a note, I had to adjust the storyline here, so the conflict with Penny is a little different, but should pan out the same in the end! There is some violence mentioned, but it's far from the focus of the chapter. Also, as with all of the chapters, I'm sorry this chapter ended up being so long!

“Do you want to go for a walk?” Neil’s voice pulled Erin’s attention back to him, away from the body of the blonde woman dancing a few feet away from her. There was a nervous smile across his face when she leaned back to look at him, and she caught him glance over her shoulder to where she knew her parents would be watching. She agreed and he took her arm, steering her from the dance floor.

The shortest distance between where they were standing and the edge of the gazebo was a line straight past Jilly and her partner. She caught the other woman’s eye as they started to move, and with a wink Jilly adjusted herself so that she would be positioned close enough for Erin to touch as she passed.

Erin surreptitiously reached out her fingertips and brushed them over Jilly’s outer thigh as she walked by. The contact sent quivers up Erin’s arm, and she heard the other woman suck in a sharp breath. She smirked to herself as Jen asked if everything was okay, and Jilly stammered back a reply.

Despite the gazebo not having walls, being surrounded by other bodies had made Erin warm, and the night air raised goosebumps along her skin. She involuntarily shivered and Neil put his arm around her. She rolled her eyes. It didn’t help the chill, but it did make walking more difficult, and she stumbled more than once as he steered her down the path that ran from the gazebo and around a sand volleyball court before turning into a dock and running out over the water.

The air was even cooler as they stood looking out at the lake. Erin leaned her back against the railing, setting one foot on the lowest plank and crossing her arms in front of her. Neil leaned sideways next to her. She gazed out over the water but felt his eyes still on her.

“Uh…yes?” she asked, her voice sharper than she’d meant it to be.

“I love to watch your hair blowing in the breeze,” he responded. If he’d noticed the harshness in her voice, he didn’t let on, instead reaching up to take a few strands of hair in his hand. They slipped through his fingers, tickling her shoulders as they fell. She snapped her head around towards him but, again, he didn’t notice her hesitation. “And the lights sparkle in your eyes.”

“Maybe my parents are wondering where I am.” Her eyes darted back towards the gazebo. She could still hear the music and felt herself longing to be back in the crowd, even if just to reach out and brush against Jilly again.

“Erin, don’t worry. If they think you’re with me, they’ll be the happiest parents at MacKay’s!” He paused to let out a short laugh. “I have to say, I’m known as the catch of the county.” He puffed out his chest and threw his shoulders back in what Erin supposed was intended to be a show of his masculinity.

She thought he just looked like an overstuffed plush animal and she was too late to hide a snort of laughter. She turned it into a cough instead, and as soon as she calmed down, Neil started talking again.

“Just last session I took a girl away from Jamie, the lifeguard, and he said to her, _right in front of me_ , he asked her, ‘What does he have that I don’t?’ And you know what she said?”

Erin shook her head.

“Two hotels!” he laughed out, leaning closer to her before bringing an arm up to rest on the railing behind her in the cliché way most teenage boys would do on a date to the movie theater. She forced a laugh, dropping her eyes to the ground and fighting her growing desire to tell him to leave her alone.

Her pulse quickened as a rustling sound drifted from the trees that lined the lake near where they stood on the dock. It was barely audible over the slight slap of water on wood, but grew louder as the seconds passed. Neil turned slightly so that he was between Erin and the trees, but she stepped around him with a sigh and watched the area.

“Phil! Philip!” Lisa’s voice cut through the night. She sounded upset, her voice high and wavering slightly. Her body followed her voice the next moment, appearing from the bushes. The waiter, Philip, came two steps behind. “I don’t hear an apology!”

He quickened his pace, stepping next to her easily before grabbing her arm and stopping her. “Go back to mommy and daddy, Lisa. Maybe you’ll hear one in your dreams.”

Erin couldn’t see his face, but she could imagine the sneer that twisted his features and brought her sister to the edge of tears. Her heart squeezed for the hurt and anger in her sister’s voice, and she knew her initial feelings about Philip – that he was probably a sleaze – weren’t that far from the truth.

The boy turned and walked around the gazebo, heading towards what Erin knew to be the staff quarters of the resort. She watched Lisa skirt around the gazebo as well, but in the opposite direction, towards their cabin.

“Sorry ya had to see that, Erin. But sometimes in this world, ya see things ya don’t wanna see,” Neil said, his voice solemn. Erin scoffed and turned her head back out towards the water. “Are you hungry?”

Food was the furthest thing from Erin’s mind but she nodded and followed him through the camp to the main house and into the kitchen. It was dark and eerily quiet compared to the usual level of noise that floated from it during the day.

“What are you in the mood for? You can have anything you want,” he said, leading her through the silvery, clean kitchen. He rattled off a list of everything available, checking multiple refrigerators and cabinets, slamming them shut as he went.

He paused for a second to glance at her and, in the moment of silence, Erin heard a soft groan followed by a small sob coming from somewhere in the room. Before she could place it, he’d moved to the next cabinet. She scanned her eyes around the room until they fell on a woman huddled on the floor, her back pressed to a cabinet as she leaned her shoulder against the wall. Neil’s voice faded out of her hearing when the woman glanced up and she recognized Penny.

She stepped between Neil and the woman, both to block him from seeing her and so that she could get a closer look at the blonde. Even from a distance Erin could see that Penny was shaking. Her breathing came in shallow gasps and when she looked sideways at Erin, her eyes were glazed. Tears had tracked mascara down her cheeks, leaving black smudges behind.

Erin pulled her eyes away from Penny’s face and shifted them over the rest of the woman’s body. The deep green dress she was wearing had slid up her thigh and Erin could see bruises marking it, matching the ones that she noticed on her upper arm. She felt the anger rise in her throat before noticing something off about the way Penny was holding herself on the floor.

The anger rose higher as she realized that the woman was pressing a wad of paper towels to her leg. She was bathed in shadow but as Erin stared she made out a pile of them on the floor next to her, all dark with…. _was that blood_?

Anger turned to panic as Erin whipped her body back around to Neil. She quickly spat out an excuse of wanting to check on her sister before she tugged on Neil’s arm and led him from the kitchen.

Instead of walking back to her cabin, she broke into a sprint towards the gazebo. It only took her a few minutes but each step seemed to drag on, turning the distance into a marathon.

Kevin was still standing next to the stereo, adjusting the music when needed. He glanced up and grinned when he saw Erin running back.

“You just missed your chance to dance with Jilly again,” he said with a smile. “Jen just left but someone else jumped in.” He gestured towards the dance floor and Erin followed with her eyes.

“Oh, thank god she’s still here,” Erin panted, bending over with her hands on her knees to catch her breath.

“Well, of course she is, she’s--” Kevin started with a laugh before Erin waved her hands above her head and straightened up, cutting him off.

“No, stop, that’s not why. I need you to get her and come with me. I just-I just was in the kitchen with Neil and he didn’t see but Penny’s in there, bleeding and crying and it doesn’t look good and I don’t know what happened but I didn’t know who else to get but Jilly.” The words tumbled out of Erin’s mouth, punctuated with deep breaths as she tried to steady her pounding heart.

She wasn’t sure she did the seriousness of the situation the justice it needed, but Kevin jumped up from against the wall and pushed his way through the dance floor, all joking forgotten. Erin watched as he pulled on Jilly’s arm and bent towards her ear, quickly repeating what Erin had just told him.

Jilly’s eyes widened and she drew her lips back over her teeth in a snarl. She turned quickly back to the woman she’d been dancing with and waved her off, then pushed her way through the dancers straight across the dance floor. Kevin followed, waving Erin to follow as well.

They walked quickly across the camp, cutting over the paths to shorten the distance. The grass was a little damp around Erin’s ankles and she slipped a few times. Each time, Jilly reached out to steady her and, each time, Erin’s heart stuttered at the contact.

“Why’s she still here?” Jilly barked at Kevin with a sharp jerk of her head towards Erin as they crossed the center of the camp. The blonde’s voice was harsher than Erin had heard it yet, its usual sensual, low tone replaced with one laced with worry and stress.

“I brought her in case Neil comes back,” he explained with a shrug.

“God, what’d he do, what’d he do, I told her nothing good would come from him, what’d he do,” Jilly kept up a steady stream of questions to herself as they walked. Erin wanted to know who ‘he’ was, but decided against asking. She glanced at Jilly from the corner of her eye.

The blonde’s face was set in a mask of worry. She was clenching her jaw and the muscles there stuck out. Her eyes were tight and her breath came in short bursts. At her side, her hands were curled into fists.

The main house was eerily quiet again as they entered. They entered the kitchen and sped through, metal surfaces ringing as they bumped and clattered around the tables. She led Kevin and Jilly to the corner where she’d seen Penny, the sounds of the woman’s whimpering floating back to them just before they rounded the corner.

Jilly ran towards the other woman, dropping to her knees and sliding the last few feet across the floor. She immediately wrapped her arms around Penny and scooped her up, holding her to her chest. Erin could hear the low sounds that slipped from her throat as she comforted the taller blonde, running her hands over her hair and rocking her slightly.

“It’s okay, baby, Jilly’s here,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s okay, you’re okay, I’m never going to let anything happen to you.” Her words didn’t stop, turning into a buzz of low murmurs.

Erin knelt to the floor next to Jilly and carefully peeled back the paper towel that Penny had been pressing to her leg. There was a long gash running down the side of her leg from her shin to her foot.

“Jilly, this might need stiches,” Erin said, her voice barely above a whisper. She didn’t even know if the other woman had heard her. Jilly barely noticed that the brunette had bent down next to her, instead lifting her head to look at Kevin with unfocused eyes.

“Kevin, can you carry her back to her cabin?” There was a note of desperation in Jilly’s voice. Her cousin easily lifted the other woman out of the blonde’s arms and into his own. Penny whimpered at losing Jilly’s touch, but the woman just murmured that she was still there and wasn’t leaving.

Erin bent forward and picked up the paper towels that were on the floor, tossing them into a nearby trashcan before finding another roll and wrapping a few layers around Penny’s ankle before letting Kevin carry her from the room. She fell into step beside Jilly, who walked much more slowly than she had between the gazebo and the kitchen.

They walked in silence for a while, until Erin heard a long sniff followed by a whine. She bit her bottom lip and glanced to her side, where Jilly was still walking.

It was late but the moon was bright overhead, and Jilly’s face was pale in the light. Erin watched as a tear slid from the blonde’s eye and tracked down her cheek. She brushed at it impatiently. Another whine escaped her throat, and Erin was reaching for the other woman’s hand before she realized she was moving.

They watched Kevin’s back as he approached Penny’s cabin and climbed the stairs. Jilly ran ahead to open the door and by the time Erin stepped into the cabin’s single room they had Penny lying in her bed. Kevin stepped into the background while Jilly held the other woman’s hand and stroked her hair. Erin bit her lip and moved closer to the bed, fixing her eyes on the paper towels around Penny’s ankle.

She slowly peeled the layers of paper towels back, grabbing a bottle of water from the nightstand and wiping the area clean. The cut wasn’t as long as she’d thought in the kitchen, but it was a little deep, and bruises were appearing around the area already. Erin had a basic understanding of first aid that she had learned from her father and her instincts screamed that the cut should have stiches.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Penny moaned out from above her. She glanced up and saw three sets of eyes fixed on her. She focused her attention on Penny before she mustered up what she hoped was a comforting smile.

“I don’t think it’s too bad,” Erin said honestly. “I mean, it’s not pretty, but a few stitches and a few days off of it and it should be fine. I think. I want to go and get my dad to look at--”

She was cut off by three shouts of refusal at once. Erin straightened up and glared at Jilly, who’d shouted the loudest. The blonde was standing at the head of the bed with her arms crossed over her chest.

“What do you mean, no? He’s a doctor, he could fix this easily!” Erin stepped around the bed. Jilly looked like she was going to say something, but Penny waved a hand at her and cut her off.

“Look, Erin, I can’t afford to see your dad, I’d have to pay for everything on top of not being able to dance and if I don’t dance I don’t get paid,” she said. Her voice cracked on the last word and another tear trickled down her cheek.

“What happened to you, Penny?” Jilly said quietly, looking at the other blonde. “Did he do this?”

Penny closed her eyes but nodded slowly. She took a deep, shaky breath before opening her mouth again. “Yeah. I was late getting ready tonight and he showed up at my door, looking angry. He asked me to come with him so I did, he went to the main house and I guess I wasn’t walking fast enough so he started to yell at me and I didn’t know why and then he-he shoved me and I went down the stairs and caught my leg on a nail or something.” Her voice faded out, leaving silence in the room, broken every so often by sniffles from Penny.

Jilly’s eyes flashed in anger and Kevin’s face was lined with concern. Erin knew that confusion would be written across hers, along with disgust and worry.

“Who was it, Penny?” she finally asked, glancing between both of the women.

“Philip,” she sighed.

“I knew something like this would happen, Penny!” Jilly exclaimed. She rounded on Erin. “And that’s why we can’t say anything, because MacKay would take his word over hers and then we’d all get fired for talking against him.”

Erin bit her lip, watching the women in front of her muttering quietly between themselves. She knew she had to tell Lisa about Philip, but the problem weighing most heavily on her mind was getting Penny’s injury medical attention. Even if she didn’t want stitches, it would have to be disinfected.

“Okay, fine, I won’t say anything to my father. But can I at least get something to clean that cut? It looks like it’s going to be infected by tomorrow morning. Please,” Erin added for emphasis. “I’ll be right back and I won’t tell my father about it.”

Jilly paused for a moment before agreeing. Erin sprinted from the cabin back to her own, pausing for a moment to slow her breathing before stepping through the door.

Her father was on the couch, a book open in his hands, and he looked at her as she quietly guided the door shut behind her. “Erin?” His voice was full of confusion when she turned slowly to face him.

“Hi, daddy,” she said slowly. “I…um…I need to borrow some band aids. And stuff. Quickly?” She pushed herself from where she’d slowly leaned towards the wall in an effort to shrink away from her father and stepped towards the corner where her father kept his bag.

“Why? Erin, is something wrong? Are you hurt? Is Lisa?” Her father rose from the couch slowly.

“No, I’m okay, and Lisa’s okay, it’s someone else but I can’t tell you who, um, they fell and have a cut and I just wanted to clean it,” Erin’s voice faded out. Her eyes were fixed on a spot on the floor as she talked. She hated feeling like she was keeping things from her father, but was worried about what could happen if she told him.

“Okay,” he said after a few moments. “Take whatever you need to clean it. And if you need help later, you know where to find me.” Her father sank back down into the couch, never breaking eye contact with her.

Erin leapt the last few feet to her father’s case and grabbed whatever she could reach, shoving rolls of gauze, band aids, and disinfectant into a bag then slinging it over her shoulder and racing back through the door. She was surprised by her father’s lack of questioning, but thankful that he didn’t ask questions.

The run back to Penny’s cabin seemed to take Erin even longer than the run to her own. She fell against the door as she knocked on it, calling for Jilly to let her in. When the other woman yanked the door open, her face was the first thing to appear, silhouetted against the bright light inside the room.

Erin’s eyes adjusted to the light after a moment and she took in Jilly’s face. Her eyes were wide and watery with worry, and it makes Erin’s heart squeeze. Her wide smile didn’t reach her eyes. She stepped lightly aside and gestured towards Penny, still on the bed but propped up on the pillows now, and Erin saw the way her hand shook as she pointed.

Erin reached out a hand quickly, raising it to cup Jilly’s cheek but hesitating for a moment. She didn’t want to cross any lines. After a breath, she laid her hand on Jilly’s shoulder and squeezed it, trying to express any comfort she could through her eyes.

She crossed the room in four steps and dumped the contents of her bag next to Penny’s foot at the end of the bed. She tore open an alcohol wipe and cleaned her hands, then used another to clean off the area around the cut on Penny’s leg.

Erin worked smoothly and efficiently, calling on the many times she’d watched her father work as a young child. She’d wanted to follow his footsteps and become a doctor herself, before the old woman haunted her nights and the idea of studying the paranormal had taken root in her mind.

She kept up a steady conversation while she worked, ensuring Penny stayed focused on talking to her and not what she was doing to the woman’s ankle. Occasionally, Jilly would ask Penny how she was doing or ask Erin what was going on while Kevin snored, sprawled out on a shabby-looking couch in the corner.

“Penny, I’m gonna need you to tell me exactly what happened,” Erin said as her fingers probed at the area around the wound. She laid a few layers of paper towels out on the bed before pouring rubbing alcohol over the cut. Penny hissed in pain above her and she apologized, glancing up at the blonde.

“It’s like I said earlier. Philip said he wanted to go on a walk and asked me to come up here with him. He seemed angry so I followed but he was still angry. It…it started to get physical and he shoved me and I fell down the stairs,” she finished quietly, pain heavy in her voice as Erin continued to look at the area around the cut. While the bleeding had slowed considerably since Erin had found the woman, the cut was still a bit deep, and Erin was worried about it reopening.

She looked up at Jilly, who was sitting at the edge of the bed holding Penny’s hand loosely in her own, and sighed. “I really think this needs to be stitched. I’m worried it’s going to open as soon as she moves.”

Jilly shifted her weight forward and moved onto her knees, leaning over towards where Erin sat. She peered at Penny’s ankle, her brow furrowed into a frown.

“I think you’re right,” she agreed before exhaling loudly. “I, uh, I can do it,” her voice was quiet, and Erin barely caught what she said.

“You _what_?” Erin’s voice was almost a laugh. “How and why do you know how to give someone stitches?”

Jilly leaned back, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “My alter-ego, Jillian Holtzmann, is an engineering student who’s pretty familiar with lab explosions.” She stood up as she talked, making various body parts crack and pop as she moved. Erin watched as she walked over to a dresser in the corner and dug through the top drawer until she pulled her hand back holding a small sewing kit.

She dumped it next to Erin’s bag, working quickly to get everything disinfected before nudging Erin from her chair. Erin stood next to her as she adjusted the chair and sat as close to the edge of the bed as she could.

“Oh my god, you were serious,” Erin said, stepping back as the other woman pushed against her legs with her shoulder. “This can’t be safe!”

“Can you move, you’re blocking my light,” Jilly said, waving her arm in Erin’s direction. “Penny, babes, this is going to hurt a little bit. It’ll be okay, I promise,” Jilly’s voice was soft as she looked at the other woman. Her eyes swung around the room and landed on Kevin, and she shouted for him to come over. “I need you to hold Penny’s hand. I’d ask Erin, but I’m pretty sure Pen would break her hand.” The last statement was accompanied by an eye roll.

Erin watched as Jilly’s fingers worked quickly and expertly. She clearly hadn’t been lying when she said she’d done it before, and Erin wondered just how many times the blonde had had to stitch something up. But despite Jilly’s best efforts to keep it as painless as possible, the taller blonde whimpered and gripped Kevin’s hand in her own, and eventually wrapped her free hand around Erin’s wrist.

Jilly wrapped the cut in gauze as soon as she was finished stitching it, and the woman relaxed back into the bed with a sigh.

“Penny,” Jilly said, fixing the other blonde with an intense stare. “What are you going to say happened?”

Penny bit her lip and frowned thoughtfully. “That I wasn’t paying attention and tripped down the stairs. That I was dancing too close to the edge and fell, or something like that.”

“Do you think MacKay’s gonna let you do anything else for the session?” Jilly looked concerned now, wondering if the accident would prevent the other woman from returning the next summer.

“I don’t know,” Penny said quietly. “I can run other stuff, like arts and crafts and help out with other things in dance lessons, but…” Penny gasped loudly. “Jilly, the Shelldrake, the dance…I’m so sorry!” Penny’s eyes were wide for a moment before she buried her head in her hands.

“Oh, shit, the Shelldrake…” Jilly’s voice was weak as she leaned back in her chair, wrapping her arms around herself. “You probably won’t even be able to stand on it then, let alone practice!”

“What’s the Shelldrake?” Erin asked, reminding the blonde women of her existence.

A few moments passed in silence before Kevin spoke up. “It’s another hotel, where they always do a fancy show at. This year it’s the mambo. If they cancel they lose this season’s salary, next season’s gig. And it’s this Thursday night.”

“Well, can’t someone else fill in? One of the other dancers?” Erin asked, raising one eyebrow and tilting her head slightly.

Jilly scoffed and stared at her while Penny just laughed sadly and stared at her hands, folded in her lap. Jilly straightened up from where she’d been leaning on Penny’s bed and folded her arms across her chest.

“No, Miss Fix-It, someone else can’t fill in. Maria has to work all day and can’t learn the routine, and Jenna has to fill in for Penny. Everyone _works_ around here,” she paused to squeeze Penny’s hand. “What, do _you_ wanna do it? Wanna take time off from Simon Says and charades and fill in for Penny?” The amusement is clear in her voice.

“Wait…that’s not a… _bad_ …idea,” Kevin said slowly, glancing between the three women. “I mean, she’s close to Penny’s size, so it’s not like it would be dancing with someone bigger.”

“No, just like dancing with someone who can’t dance!” Erin cried, feeling a blush creep up her cheeks for the first time that night. While he’d managed to keep her physical reaction to Jilly out of her mind as they were working to help Penny, now that things had calmed down, she was all too aware of what the blonde made her feel.

“I mean, I wouldn’t go so far as to say you _can’t_ dance,” Jilly said quietly.

“Not after what I saw y’all doing last night,” Penny added under her breath, earning a soft punch to her arm from Jilly, who, Erin was pleased to see, had a pink glow to her cheeks.

“It was a joke, Kev,” Jilly responded to her cousin, ignoring the interruptions from Penny and Erin.

“But she can move,” Kevin pointed out, gesturing towards Erin, who firmly shook her head and waved her hands in the air.”

 “It’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard!” Jilly insisted.

“No!” Erin half-yelled. “I can’t even dance the merengue!”

“Hear that, guys? She can’t even dance the merengue,” Jilly said, waving one arm in Erin’s direction.

“Jilly, you’re a strong partner, you can lead anybody!” Penny insisted, tugging on the other blonde’s hand.

“ _No_ , you heard her, she can’t do it! She cannot do it!” Jilly insisted, turning on her heel and pacing across the cabin floor.

Erin was stung by the lack of belief in her abilities. Her stomach boiled with spite as she placed her hands firmly on her hips. “Well, what choice do you _really_ have?”

The blonde stopped her pacing and turned in Erin’s direction. Resignation was written across her face as she sighed, “We don’t.”

“We don’t,” Penny added, her eyes flicking between Erin and Jilly.

“I’m a quick learner, and I can follow directions. We can…we can do this,” Erin said, stepping towards Jilly. “It’ll be hard, but…we can.”

“I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this. We work every day between now and Thursday, and you listen to _everything_ I say,” the blonde’s eyes were hard as she gazed at Erin.

The feelings that Erin had kept at bay throughout the ordeals of the evening, from staring at the blonde on the dance floor to the short distance over which they watched each other now, rushed through her body. She was acutely aware of the way her heart thudded through her body. Each nerve ending felt alive, as if sparks of electricity were dancing from them and across her skin. She felt herself nodding in agreement.

A cough from Penny broke silence and shattered the moment Erin had been sharing with the other blonde. Blushing bright pink, she turned her attention back to the woman on the bed. The floorboards creaked beneath her feet as she stepped back towards the bed.

She picked up several of the things that she’d dumped from her bag an instructed Penny on how to care for her wound. After promising to come back the next day to check on her, Erin scrawled her cell phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to the woman, telling her to call her if she needed anything.

“Try to stay off it until tomorrow, if you can. And goodnight,” Erin said as she moved towards the door.

Penny laughed. “You better get a good night’s sleep tonight, Er,” she said. “You start lessons with this one--” she motioned towards Jilly “--in the morning and you’ll need your rest.”

Erin nodded and waved over her shoulder, following Kevin from the cabin. They waited for Jilly on the short porch, Erin leaning against a railing while Kevin slouched against one of the supports holding up the roof of the cabin.

“I can’t believe you did that,” Erin said, breaking the silence for the first time. “I can’t believe you got me roped into this.”

Kevin just laughed. “You’ll be fine. You’re not as bad as you think, and Jilly really is an incredible teacher. You just have to relax,” he said, reaching out to punch her shoulder gently.

She sighed and looked back up at the sky. The door creaked open behind her and she heard Jilly step out onto the porch before pulling the door shut behind her. Kevin shifted beside her and she felt herself being pulled up into a crushing hug.

“Goodnight, Erin,” he said, laughing once again. He set her back down onto the ground before turning and squeezing his cousin just as tight. He pushed passed Erin and down the stairs, leaving her alone with Jilly for the first time.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then? First lesson?” Erin tried to make her voice light as she swung her gaze to the blonde. She attempted a laugh which came out more like a nervous giggle before fading into silence.

“No, let me walk you back to your cabin. I don’t want you out alone tonight,” Jilly said, hopping lightly down the stairs before extending an arm back to Erin, who was still trying to make her limbs move as her brain processed what was happening. She reached a hand down and wrapped it around Jilly’s arm, shifting her arm so that they were linked at the elbow as she stepped off the stairs.

She let Jilly steer slightly as they walked. They were walking slowly, and it was a few minutes before Erin broke the silence.

“So, I guess we’re dancing together now,” she said quietly. She felt like she should apologize in advance, so she did.

“It’s okay,” Jilly said, a smile in her voice. “It’ll be a fun…challenge.”

She laughed. “Well, good luck, then.” They continued on in silence again for a few minutes. Erin felt too aware of each part of her body, like every connection in her brain was firing too rapidly, overwhelming her senses. The way Jilly’s breath sounded against their footsteps, the way it felt when the blonde’s hips bumped against her side, the way Erin could smell her perfume again. She had to force herself to concentrate on each step or she thought her legs might stop working.

She suddenly felt awkward in the silence, so she blurted the first thing that came to her mind. “So your alter-ego is an engineer?”

Jilly laughed, slowing her pace even more. “Yes, she is. For ten months out of the year I’m Jillian Holtzmann, a grad student at MIT. Nuclear engineering, experimental particle physics, you name it, I’ll do it. I just, uh…” she let out a laugh, then shrugged. “Prone to explosions, I suppose.”

Erin’s feet stopped moving at some point while the blonde talked. “You _what_? You’re not a professional dancer?”

The blonde laughed again, even harder, grasping at her sides and breathing hard to control herself. “No, not at all. I’m a scientist. Come on, keep moving.” She tugged at Erin’s hand until she stumbled and fought to regain balance.

“Okay, I’m coming, I’m sorry. I’m just…really surprised,” she muttered, eyes still wide. “I’m majoring in physics next year.”

She felt a thousand questions burning in her mind, but Jilly fell into a silence that Erin didn’t want to break. Everything that had happened that night was spinning in her mind, leaving her dizzy if she thought about any one thing for too long. At some point, Jilly’s arm had slipped back into hers, and she leaned into the other woman. It felt comfortable.

Sooner than she wanted, her cabin appeared in the distance. Her hand was still around Jilly’s arm and she moved to pull it back. She felt a hand cover hers, holding it in place.

Jilly pulled her to a stop when they reached the stairs that led to Erin’s cabin. Erin turned so that she was facing the blonde and ran her fingers down Jilly’s arm. She was pulling her hand back when she felt fingers weave themselves within hers, holding her hand in place again.

“Thank you,” Jilly’s voice was lower than Erin had heard it before. When Jilly glanced up and caught her eye, Erin saw a thousand unspoken words.

“N-no problem,” Erin stuttered out, blinking. Her brain was sending conflicting signals to every part of her body and she wasn’t sure if she was going to run away or kiss the other woman. She stepped backwards, pulling her hand from Jilly’s to hang lamely at her side. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yeah,” Jilly took a few steps back before stopping. “See you in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for sticking with me so far and all of the positive feedback! I hope you liked this section as much, I know it's quite different from the movie but I had to make some adjustments. If you loved it or hated it, please tell me why on Tumblr (anothercaffeinatedlesbian) - the kind messages absolutely make my day.


	6. find the two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jilly gives Erin her first dance lesson.

Erin’s phone alarm screamed in her ear the next morning, yanking her back to consciousness. She grabbed it quickly, sliding her thumb across the screen to shut it off, and listened as Lisa groaned in her sleep and turned over. Quietly reaching under her bed for her suitcase, Erin picked out clothes for the day and slipped into the bathroom.

She set the water to cool, hoping the shower would help wake her up. She moved quickly and stepped out of the shower with a shiver, hugging her towel tight around her chest as her teeth chattered. Water dripped from her hair, leaving rivulets down her back. A yawn built in her throat and she let it out with a stretch and groan before shaking her whole body. Water splashed across the bathroom floor, but her mind felt clearer than it had since the night before.

She replayed the night’s events in her head, going over everything that had happened. The less-than-professional stitching job done by Jilly made her nervous, and she decided to check on Penny before meeting the other blonde at her cabin for their first dance lesson.

Half an hour later, she stood back an examined her reflection in the dimly-lit bedroom. Even though her face was cast in shadow, she knew the exhaustion she felt would be written clearly across it. She ran a hand over her face, avoiding the makeup she’d decided to wear, before grabbing her bag and a jacket and slipping from the bedroom into the living room.

It was past 8:00 and her father was settled into the same spot on the couch as the night before. He looked up as she entered the room.

“You’re up early,” he said, a hint of question in his voice.

She exhaled, almost a sigh, before sitting heavily in the armchair that faced the couch and leaning back into it. “Yeah, I wanted to check on my friend who fell last night on my way up to breakfast. Then I’m…you’re not going to believe this, but I decided to…take a dance lesson.” Her cheeks flushed as she admitted half the truth behind the reason for her early wakeup call.

Her father frowned, looking thoughtfully at her. “Is your friend okay? Are you sure you don’t want me to take a look?”

She shook her head. “No, it’ll be okay. I just want to make sure it wasn’t worse than we thought last night.”

“If you’re sure. But if you change your mind, come to me, okay?” He fixed her with an intense stare, as if he was trying to figure out if she was telling the truth. He must have been satisfied with what he saw, because an amused expression fell over his features. “So, a dance lesson?” She could tell he was trying not to laugh.

“Yes, a dance lesson,” she rolled her eyes before pushing herself from the chair. “One of the instructors saw me dancing pitifully with Neil two nights in a row and offered me some help. Figured I could use all I can get?”

Her laughter mingled with her father’s as she walked towards the door. “Okay, Erin. I’ll see you later. Be safe.”

The door swung shut behind her with a creak. She hopped down the stairs into the still-dewy grass and set off for the main house. The camp was still sleepy and she enjoyed the silence, wondering about what the next few days would be like.

She wasn’t sure what scared her more – the idea of having to learn how to dance, how to carry herself, and a whole routine from start to finish, or the idea of spending almost all of the next week alone with Jilly. Her racing heart and shaking legs made her think it was probably the second one.

Erin was one of a few camp guests who milled around the breakfast area of the main house. While most guests would attend the sit-down breakfast that started half an hour later, at 9:00 there was also a table lined with more mobile-friendly foods. She grabbed a few apples and granola bars for her and the dancers and shoved them into her bag, then moved to a second table. It was lined with insulated cups and carafes of coffee and she filled three, tossing plastic creamer cups and sugar packets into her bag along with the breakfast.

“Early breakfast today?” Erin felt someone lean down behind her, muttering into her ear. The breath was hot and damp on the side of her face and she cringed. She recognized the voice a moment later and the cringe deepened.

“Philip,” she spat over her shoulder. She spun around to face him, leaning gently against the table to get as much space between his body and hers as possible.

“You’re Erin the world-changer, right?” His voice was mocking, and Erin felt her anger growing as her mind flickered back to the night before.

“Can you just…back up? I’m just trying to get coffee,” she said, turning her attention back to the cups in front of her and reaching for a stack of lids.

“So is it like, a caffeine problem? Or are you taking some coffee back to your sister?” She felt Philip shift behind her, moving so that his body was next to hers, blocking her quickest route to the door. “She’s not a very nice girl, is she?”

Erin’s heart dropped, settling into her stomach like a rock. “How _dare_ you!” Her voice was loud, louder than she would have liked under normal circumstances, but she let it rise. “You despicable worm! I know what you did! You’re abusive, and you’re cruel!” He opened his mouth to respond, but Erin continued. “The only reason my father and Mr. MacKay don’t know yet is because Penny asked me not to tell. But you stay away from me, and you stay away from my sister, or I _will_ have you fired.”

She turned back to fitting lids to the cups of coffee. Her fingers shook in anger but she managed to get the lids on. Philip made disbelieving gasping noises behind her and she ignored them, bumping hard into his side with her shoulder when she turned towards the exit.

She walked back outside. The temperature had risen a few degrees while she was inside and she walked more slowly towards Penny’s cabin than she had to the main house. The coffee was hot, and she gripped the cups carefully.

Erin climbed the steps in front of Penny’s cabin lightly and shifted the cups so that two were stacked in her left hand. She reached out with her right hand to knock, careful not to spill the hot liquid on her skin. She was mid-swing towards the door when it opened in front of her and Jilly’s face stared back at her. With a gasp she stilled her hand just before it connected with the other woman’s nose.

“Well, good morning to you too,” Jilly said, lips curling into a smirk. She stepped aside and let Erin into the cabin. She was wearing the same clothes as the night before and Erin wondered if she’d left at all.

Sun streamed through the windows, lighting the room. Penny was awake, sitting up in the bed, and she shot Erin a smile as Jilly shut the cabin door.

“I brought breakfast?” Erin offered quietly, turning behind her to hand one of the coffees to Jilly before setting the other two on the nightstand and dumping her bag on Penny’s bed. “It’s not much, but it’s what they had, so. Yeah. I was going to bring it to you next, Jilly, but here you go.”

Jilly let out a laugh and wrapped her arms around Erin, pressing yet another quick kiss to the same soft skin under her ear. Erin thought there would be a permanent mark there by the end of the session. The blonde moved to the other side of the bed, where she’d pulled over the couch Kevin had slept on the night before and pushed it against the wall.

Jilly and Penny talked to Erin while they ate, giving her as much information about the dance she’d be doing later that week as they could. Erin grew steadily more nervous as they talked, her throat tightening so much it was hard for her to swallow anything.

She reached out for anything that could distract her from what she was getting into, and her mind finally landed on the real reason she’d gone to the cabin.

“How’s your ankle?” she asked, resting her hand lightly above where she knew the stitches were. Penny nodded and she shifted the blankets away. “Does this hurt?” she asked as she pressed her fingers gently around the stiches.

“No more than I’d expect, considering I’m pretty sure I twisted it on my way down, too,” Penny answered, groaning softly. Erin noticed slight bruising that ran around her ankle and nodded.

“It looks like it’s healing well enough. I can’t be positive, but if you’re really sure you don’t want my father to take a look--” she rolled her eyes as both Jilly and Penny shook their heads violently “--then stay off it for today, at least, and if you can, maybe some ice.”

She shifted the blankets back over Penny’s leg and the women sat in silence for a few minutes before Jilly broke it after glancing at her watch and yelping that it was after 10:00.

“Well, kid, ya ready?” Jilly said as she stood up from the couch, stretching.

A thin sliver of pale skin was visible as her stretch drug her shirt upwards and Erin bit her lip to keep in a whimper. She nodded slowly, sighing as she stood up.

“Well, wish me luck, Pen,” Jilly winked at her partner, who laughed.

“Wish _you_ luck? Jilly, I know you. I should be wishing Erin luck,” Penny rolled her eyes and laughed again.

“That’s comforting,” Erin muttered slinging her bag back over her shoulder and following Jilly from the cabin. It was warmer still when they stepped outside, and Erin tugged the light jacket from her shoulders as they walked down the steps.

“Shut up, you’ll be fine. I promise!” Jilly said with a giggle at the disbelieving look that crossed Erin’s face. Erin felt a fist lightly connect with her shoulder as Jilly nudged her.

Jilly lived in one of the staff cabins furthest back from the rest of camp, but it wasn’t a long walk from Penny’s. As they walked, she broke down the basics of the dance for Erin, who tried her best to keep the information locked in her brain.

Jilly held the door open for her to pass through when they reached the blonde’s cabin. Erin slowly took in her surroundings, wanting to preserve everything she could about the dancer.

The first thing Erin noticed was a big, squishy-looking chair in the middle of the room directly in front of her. There was a book, open and cover-up, resting over its arm. She tried to make out the title, but it was too far away. She turned her attention to the rest of the room.

The bed shoved against the wall was messy and unmade, but Erin wondered how long ago it had been slept in. There was a small table in one corner, a single chair pushed against it. A suitcase was open, contents spilling out onto the floor, in front of the closet, while the dresser next to it had clothes hanging from each drawer. The only personal touches Erin could see were a picture of the blonde and another woman that was taped to the wall above the blonde’s nightstand.

“It’s not much, but it’s temporary,” Jilly said, waving her arm vaguely around the room. “Do you wanna sit down? I need to change.” She pointed to the big chair as she walked towards where her clothes had exploded.

Erin sank into the armchair, glancing at the cover of the book. “ _An In-Depth Look at Quantum Theory_?” she said, turning the book over and flipping through a few pages before leaning over and peeking her head around the back of the chair to look at the blonde, who had already removed her shirt and was stepping out of her pants, pooled on the floor around her, at that moment.

She almost flipped over the arm of the chair onto the floor. Jilly’s back was towards her, and all she had on was a black sports bra and yellow boxers. Even from across the room, Erin could make out the muscles in the woman’s back and legs and shoulders. The sight of pale skin shifting and muscles rippling as Jilly moved was burned into her brain. Erin felt heat coursing through every particle of her body. She wanted to reach out and touch the other woman, to drag her fingers over that pale skin, to leave red marks wherever she could reach, to kiss and taste and just _touch_ every inch available to her.

She watched for what felt like hours, but knew it couldn’t have been more than twenty seconds. The blonde slipped a loose purple tank top over her shoulders and tugged shorts up her legs before turning around, fixing Erin with an amused gaze.

“Did you hear anything I just said?” Jilly’s voice was low with laughter.

Erin felt her cheeks heat up even more. “Well…no?”

The blonde laughed again, making Ern’s cheeks turn a deeper shade of red. “I told you, dancing just helps pay the bills. I’m a student. It’s a book for next semester. Now, we dance!”

She walked back to the chair, placing one hand on each arm and leaning down, her face dangerously close to Erin’s. A wicked grin passed over her lips and Erin could see her pupils dilating. To prevent herself from staring too intently at the blonde’s lips she dropped her head, gazing at her hands in her lap. The only thing Erin could hear was her own heartbeat pounding throughout her body. She still hadn’t recovered from watching the blonde get dressed, and the heat pooling between her legs was almost too much to take.

Erin felt a warm pressure under her chin and allowed her head to be guided back upwards. “None of that,” Jilly’s voice was low. “You have to let yourself go.”

Erin barely bit back a laugh. She bit her lip and nodded, trying to force herself to relax. She felt her muscles loosen slightly.

“I’ve never danced before, Jilly,” she whispered, hearing the fear she’d been holding back creep into her voice.

“I know, but you got me. You’ll be okay, Er,” Jilly responded, a reassuring smile on her face. “We’ll start out really basic. Watch my feet.”

The blonde walked over to the nightstand, where an iPod sat on a set of speakers. Music started to play and Jilly swayed in place for a few beats. Her eyes drifted shut and she added her arms into the dance.

Once again, Erin was distracted by the other woman’s movements. Everything she did looked so smooth and effortless than Erin had trouble picturing her doing anything _but_ dancing, let alone physics.

Jilly started to silently move her mouth along with the music, her voice eventually audible over the beat. “One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Well, are you going to stand up, or are you going to do the mambo from my armchair?” She was looking at Erin from the corner of her eye.

Blushing again, Erin walked over to Jilly. She let the blonde adjust her arms, holding them awkwardly high and away from her body.

“Don’t step on the one. You gotta start on the two. Find the two, understand?” Jilly said as the music continued to play softly behind them. “Remember what I was doing with my feet, the way I was stepping? Do that.”

Erin still had her arms suspended in the air in front of her and Jilly tucked herself into them so that one of Erin’s hands was on her shoulder. She rested one hand against Erin’s side and held the other.

“Just wait til the song repeats, it’s almost over,” Jilly murmured. “Is this position comfortable for you? Your arms will probably get tired after a while, but it’ll get easier.”

Erin glanced up, surprised at the genuine concern in the blonde’s voice. She felt the air squeeze from her lungs the minute her eyes connected with the bright blue ones looking back at her, nervousness plain to see even through the yellow lenses.

Erin made a mental note to ask Jilly about the glasses later then blinked, shifting her gaze from the other woman’s eyes to stare at her cheeks instead, or she knew she wouldn’t retain a single second of the dance. The song ended and silence fell over the pair for a few seconds before picking up again.

“Remember, on the two,” Jilly said, but Erin moved too quickly and stepped on her foot.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Erin moaned out, pulling away from the blonde and covering her face.

The music paused and she felt hands wrap around her wrist, pulling her hands away from her face. Jilly was smiling at her.

“It’s okay. This is new, you’re not going to get it overnight with no practice. But we do have to work hard,” she said, dropping Erin’s hands to her side. “Can you promise me you’ll do that?”

Erin bit her lip. It felt like everything was working against her – not only did she have just a few days to learn and perfect a whole dance when she’d never danced in her life, but her partner was someone who turned her bones to jelly and stomach to fireworks as soon as she entered Erin’s thoughts. She sighed.

“Of course I do,” she said, her voice low with defeat as she stared at the floor. “I’m just no good, and I know I’m no good.”

Jilly’s voice was cheerful when she replied. “I wouldn’t have said we could do it if I thought you were really hopeless, Erin.”

Erin felt a hand brush against hers and she glanced up at the blonde through her bangs.

“Okay,” she whispered, raising her arms again.

They worked on the entrance for half an hour until Erin had the rhythm down. Her arms were burning but she ignored it, keeping them as high as she could as she moved.

After practicing the entrance together, Jilly stepped to the side and watched Erin move through the motions herself, stepping forward and then back. She selected a faster song and kept up a stream of instructions and encouragement despite Erin’s blunders and stumbles.

“You’re doing good, just keep it up, one, two, three, four,” Jilly’s voice was sharp over the music as she counted and Erin tried to keep up with her pace.

“I’m--sorry--I’m--so--bad,” she panted out, still moving her feet. Her legs were screaming in protest but she kept moving, willing her feet to cooperate.

“You’re okay,” Jilly said, her voice falling into the same beat as the music, foot tapping along gently. “Two, three, four, two, three four. Okay, keep going, I’m just going to…”

Her voice faded out as she stepped closer to Erin, who was still moving her feet. She was getting tired and felt her movements getting looser with each step.

“You gotta keep yourself tight. Relaxed but tight,” Jilly instructed, reaching out towards Erin.

Her heartbeat, already pounding from dancing, increased even more when Jilly rested one hand between her shoulder blades and the other just below her chest, between her breasts. Beads of sweat were already collecting over her skin but she felt herself get even warmer. She started counting out loud, whispering along with the beat just to keep herself focused.

“Don’t lean back,” Jilly’s voice punctuated each note as she pressed more firmly between Erin’s shoulders.

Erin swung forward but overcompensated.

“Keep this up,” the blonde said, spreading her hand so that her thumb rested on one side of Erin’s ribcage and her fingers spanned the gap to the other, where her pinky rested.

Erin wondered if it was possible to be burned just from someone else’s hand on her body, knowing that if it was, she’d have a mark from Jilly’s hand on her ribs forever.

“Two, three, four,” Jilly counted as she moved her hand from Erin’s back to her shoulder. “Shoulders down. Two, three, four.”

Jilly continued to count as Erin fell into a comfortable routine. It was easier with the blonde holding her upper half steady and she focused on the way her hips and legs were moving while her chest and shoulders rocked back and forth slightly.

As the song ended for the fourth time, Erin’s feet stuttered to a halt. She let her legs buckle beneath her and groaned.

“I know, but it’ll get easier. You’re in for crazy sore muscles tomorrow, though,” Jilly said, tapping Erin on the shoulder with a water bottle, which she took gratefully.

“I was sore after I crashed your party the other night,” Erin admitted, shifting her weight and crossing her legs. She stared up at the bed where Jilly was sitting, also cross-legged.

“Yeah, well, we did dance…quite a bit…and quite intensely,” Jilly muttered, rubbing a hand over the back of her neck as her cheeks glowed with a hint of pink.

“You can say that again,” Erin laughed.

They faded into silence for a few minutes until Jilly patted the space on the bed next to her. “You don’t have to sit on the floor, you can sit up here. I don’t bite, you know.”

Erin drummed her fingers on the floor, hesitating for a moment. She bit back a comment about _wishing_ Jilly would bite before pushing herself up and flopping directly onto the bed, facedown.

Jilly let out a laugh and rested her hand on the small of Erin’s back before helping her flip over. Her body was just far enough onto the bed for her to bend her knees and rest her feet flat against the floor and Jilly laid next to her. Their shoulders pressed together and Erin felt Jilly’s fingers brushing against hers, twitching as the blonde moved to a song in her head.

It was so easy in Erin’s head, just to move her own hand ever so slightly and weave her fingers between the blonde’s. Her hand is raised, ready to move, when she freezes and changes direction.

“Who is that?” Erin asked as she pointed at the picture on the wall. She tried her best to keep the disappointment at herself out of her voice.

“That’s Patty!” Jilly said, reaching up and pulling the picture down. “She’s my girl! Best friend for as long as I can remember.”

Erin watched the other woman stare at the picture fondly.

“And no, we aren’t together,” Jilly said, answering Erin’s unasked questions and making her blush yet again.

“How’d you meet her?” Erin asked, turning her head towards Jilly.

“High school. I, uh, I never really fit it much as a kid. I’m pretty loud. And…unconventional,” Jilly said, dropping her hands to her stomach. Her voice is heavy with sadness. “I don’t say the right things or anything and I’m just…too _much_ for a lot of people?”

She paused, taking a few deep breaths before continuing. “But not Patty. She was my first friend. I met her in the library. I started talking about ghosts and she started talking about haunted buildings. It was like platonic love at first sight.”

Jilly turned her head towards Erin, meeting her gaze. Erin knew shock and confusion was written across her features, and Jilly sighed again before launching back into talking.

“Yes, I said ghosts, they’re real, I promise, and I’m going to prove it,” Jilly rolled her eyes, as if she had given the same speech a million times.

“No, no, _no_ , I definitely believe you, I’ve just…I’ve only ever met one other person who believes in ghosts,” Erin said, leaning up on her arm to better look at the blonde. “Most people think I’m crazy when I tell them we’re going to prove ghosts exist.”

“Well, I don’t think you’re crazy,” Jilly assured her with a laugh. “But I _do_ think that’s a story for another day. I’m sorry, Er. It’s almost noon and I have to figure out my lessons for after lunch.”

Erin groaned, letting herself fall back down flat onto the bed. Her body suddenly felt heavy and the bed was suddenly the most comfortable place she’d ever been.

“Ya good, kid?” Jilly grinned down at her. Erin hadn’t even felt her move from the bed.

The blonde reached a hand out and Erin grabbed it. Even through the exhaustion she felt her body’s reaction to the touch and arousal slammed into her again, only increasing as Jilly tugged her upwards and she found herself in an awkward-half hug, pressed against the blonde.

She tilted her head back and met Jilly’s eyes. The world around her stilled while every cell in her body went into overdrive. She felt like a livewire, her mind sending out signals to every muscle and bone to move and to stay and to run and to just kiss the other woman.

Jilly stepped back, breaking the moment almost as soon as it started.

“Well,” the blonde said. “Same time tomorrow?” She offered Erin half a smile.

Feeling her heart sink, Erin nodded in agreement. She smiled at Jilly before turning and walking from the cabin towards the main house to meet her family for lunch, stopping to shuffle her feet back and forth every few steps.

Jilly didn’t leave her thoughts for the rest of the afternoon. Erin sat through lunch quietly, tapping her feet along with the song that bounced through her head. She watched her sister play volleyball and drummed her fingers on the ground next to her, running over the moves she had learned in her mind. She smiled through dinner and even through Neil asking her to dance afterwards, cheerfully claiming a headache and a desire for an early night.

Erin danced her way back to her family’s cabin and through her shower, remembering the instructions Jilly had given her throughout the whole lesson earlier.

She finally collapsed into bed and curled into a ball, still wearing the same huge smile on her face as thoughts of Jilly danced through her mind and into her dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading and thank you for the positive comments on the last chapter! It's encouragement and support that keep me writing and I'm always grateful to know what you think. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and if you did (or didn't), let me know why!


	7. i feel the magic between you and i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erin's dance lessons continue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update, but here's the next chapter!

The resort was silent as Erin danced across the grass, making her way from the main house to Jilly’s cabin for another dance lesson. Her hands, up and away from her body in the way Jilly had shown her the day before, each held a cup of coffee. She moved without spilling a drop, and felt pride and excitement rise in her chest as she made her way up the stairs to the blonde’s front door.

She carefully shifted the cup in her right hand to her left and raised a fist to knock on the door. Confusion tugged at her brain as the seconds passed with no answer or sound from inside. She glanced at her watch, but she was only ten minutes earlier than the blonde had told her to be there. She knocked again.

“’m com’n,” responded a sleepy voice from inside. Erin shifted one of the coffees back into her right hand and stood back, a smile already creeping over her lips as she heard the sounds of the blonde making her way towards the door.

“Morning!” she said as soon as the door opened. Her eyes widened immediately as she took in Jilly’s disheveled, obviously just-rolled-out-of-bed look. She was even still in her pajamas.

“M-m-morning, Erin,” Jilly muttered out through a yawn as she stepped back to let Erin into her cabin, rubbing her eyes.

“Hi,” Erin smiled back, handing the other woman one of the cups of coffee. She pressed her own cup against her lips, letting the warm liquid breathe some sort of life back into her body and mind.

Erin glanced around the cabin. It was slightly neater than it had been the previous day. Most of the clothes that had been scattered around the closet had been shoved somewhere else, but the bed was still unmade.

“How’re you feeling?” Jilly asked, sipping her coffee before letting out another yawn.

Erin giggled. “Sore, but good. Still tired?”

Jilly rolled her eyes. “Just not a morning person. There’s a reason I never have any lessons before lunch. Well, _had_ ,” she added, emphasizing the last word and punctuating it with a wink that sent Erin’s heart fluttering.

“I’m sorry?” Erin asked sarcastically, frowning at the other woman, who was now moving across the cabin towards the dresser and closet in the corner.

“I’d rather be teaching you now than fired later,” Jilly laughed. “Even if it means waking up while the clock’s still on single digits.”

Erin watched as the other woman dug through the dresser drawers, pulling shirts and shorts out at random. “But what’s going to happen to Penny?”

At the sound of her partner’s name, Jilly turned around to face Erin. “Oh, MacKay’s letting her do other lessons for the rest of the session. She told him she tripped down the stairs outside her cabin. He was pissed, but she’s teaching some beauty stuff, I guess, and arts and crafts.”

The other woman turned away again, slowly peeling the black tank top from her torso and letting it fall to the ground. Erin bit her lip as she watched, the pale skin of Jilly’s body making her heartbeat thud through her body again.

Even though her body’s immediate reactions to the blonde, like the racing heartbeat and inability to form coherent thoughts, were wearing down slightly, she didn’t think the sight of the blonde would ever stop making her blood boil or heat pool between her legs.

“That’s good,” Erin said, forcing herself to stare somewhere besides the curve of the blonde’s hip. Jilly slipped a tank top over her shoulders and Erin’s eyes followed her hands as they tugged at the hem of her shorts, pulling them down her legs. She squinted to make out the small red and yellow designs against the black background. “Jilly, are those…Pringles on your pants?”

The blonde laughed as she slid a new pair of shorts on, then turned to look at Erin with a wide smile. “Of course. I love those salty parabolas.” Her smile turned dreamy and Erin snorted in laughter.

Jilly clapped loudly, crossing the cabin in a few steps. “Okay, now for the serious business. Not that Pringles _aren’t_ serious business,” she added with a thoughtful frown. “I think the first thing we should do today is actually _watch_ the dance, so you know what you’re doing.”

She took the now-empty cup from Erin’s hand tossed it into a trashcan by the door, then drank hers in a few long sips before settling onto the bed. Her phone rested on the nightstand and she picked it up, staring at the screen as she patted the spot on the bed next to her without looking up.

Erin sank down onto the mattress, tucking one leg under her body. She let her body lean into Jilly’s, their shoulders pressed together as they watched Jilly and Penny dance across the screen.

Jilly set the phone down and turned to Erin when the dance was over. “That was our dance from last year. So, there you have it! Do you remember what we did yesterday?”

Erin nodded. The other woman gestured for Erin to get up and show her, so she pushed herself from the bed. Jilly picked up her iPod and scrolled through its contents, then selected the same song that had been on repeat the day before.

Erin counted along with the beat in her head, waiting a few counts before stepping in time with the music. The first few steps were slow but she soon fell into an easy rhythm, moving smoothly with the sound trickling from the speakers.

“That’s so good, Er, especially for the second day,” Jilly said with a wide smile. “We’re going to do a little more today, okay?”

Erin stilled her body and nodded.

She watched as the other woman stood up from the bed with a stretch, then waited for the song to end so it could begin again. She began dancing as soon as it did. Only Jilly’s feet moved at first, mirroring what Erin had just done.

“So there’s the beginning, which you know,” Jilly said quickly, her voice cutting over the music. “From there, the first move is a twirl, so you’ll move under my arm. We’ll do that later.” She raised one arm to demonstrate, then fell back into silence as she moved.

Her hands were out from her body and her head stayed high as she smiled at Erin, who grinned back. Then the rest of her body began to move as well, as she stepped and swayed around the room.

As the blonde turned her body and moved her arms, Erin tried to imagine herself going through the moves along with her. By the time the song ended, she gazed at Jilly with wide eyes, and could feel the apprehension written in her features.

“And you want _me_ to do _that_?” Erin asked, her voice quiet.

“Sure do, hot stuff,” Jilly said. “Like I said yesterday, I wouldn’t have agreed if I thought there was no chance you could do it. So, do you wanna give it a shot?”

Erin bit her lip but nodded and listened as Jilly broke down the first few steps for her. Her eyes followed the blonde’s movements and she connected them to the words the dancer was using to describe each step.

The first time Erin tried to mimic the steps was completely disastrous. The second time was slightly better, but still fumblingly awkward. She got all the right steps in the right order on the third try, and in her excitement, tripped and ended up in a pile on the floor, sending Jilly into hysterics.

“I’m sorry, Erin,” Jilly gasped out a minute later, brushing tears from her eyes. “But that was adorably hilarious. I’ve never seen someone so excited about learning to dance that they fall over.” The blonde dissolved into laughter again before the last word was past her lips.

“Hmph,” Erin muttered from the floor before pulling herself up, using the edge of the bed for support.

“Are you okay?” Jilly asked, breathing deeply to calm herself.

Erin nodded, moving through the steps again. There wasn’t much to it, and a lot of it was the footwork she had learned the day before, but the frown on her face etched deeper with each step.

“Erin, Erin, stop,” Jilly sighed, waving at Erin and pausing the music. “You’re way too tense. Relax. The steps aren’t enough. You have to _feel_ the music.”

Erin groaned and rolled her eyes, letting her head fall back until she was staring at the rafters overhead. She opened her mouth, but Jilly cut her off.

“Don’t think of it as a dance. It’s not the _mambo_ , it’s a…a _feeling_ ,” Jilly said, tilting her head. “A heartbeat.”

She brought her hand to her chest and rested it over her heart. “Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum,” she murmured, tapping two fingers against her chest.

Erin slowly tapped her hand against her own chest, feeling the way the action fell in time with the music in her mind.

“I want to try something,” Jilly said quietly, reaching for Erin’s hand. She slipped it between her own hand and her chest, drumming her fingers over Erin’s.

Erin’s hand burned where it rested against Jilly’s chest, and her own heartbeat raced with the contact.

“Close your eyes,” Jilly whispered, keeping up the beat of her hand as Erin’s eyes fluttered close. “Do you feel that?”

Erin nodded slowly, letting the feelings fill her body. The way Jilly’s heartbeat pounded against her hand, slightly faster than the pace of the blonde’s tapping fingers, sent electricity flowing over her skin. She heard the song start again and the music flowing over her body calmed her.

Jilly began stepping in time with the music and Erin followed, her eyes still closed. Her feet shifted beneath her as Jilly continued to tap out a beat against the back of her hand.

“Remember to breathe,” Jilly reminded as they moved, and Erin let the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding ease from her lungs. She let her eyes drift open again and found the blonde staring at her, holding her gaze.

“That was so much better, Erin!” There was a wide smile on Jilly’s face half an hour later, after she had restarted the song several times and had Erin run through her movements until she was confident she could move through them in her sleep.

“Thanks,” Erin responded, ducking her head to hide the blush spreading up her cheeks at the other woman’s praise. A proud grin worked its way across her lips.

“Wanna keep going?” Jilly asked, stepping away from Erin, who nodded so quickly the blonde laughed again. She sat down on the bed and tapped the spot beside her as she reached for her phone, reopening the video she had pulled up earlier.

Erin watched the couple dance on the screen, paying attention to the way the woman twirled and shifted around the man. Jilly commented on certain steps, telling Erin about what would be different with their dance, and Erin tried again to imagine herself moving like the other woman.

Jilly stood up, starting the music as she stepped from the bed. She moved gracefully through the steps and Erin followed with her eyes. She gestured for Erin to join her and Erin pushed herself from the mattress again, standing directly in front of the other woman.

The music started and Erin followed Jilly’s lead. She let the music carry her, stepping lightly. She willed herself to keep her eyes locked on Jilly’s, but eventually found them drifting down to the floor, watching as she stepped.

“No, wait, hold on,” Jilly stopped. “You’re too loose now. You have to be relaxed, but controlled, see?” The blonde continued to move as she talked, bringing a finger to Erin’s chin. “Head up. Lock your frame, lock it. Lock it, look, spaghetti arms!” She pointed to Erin’s arm, which had drooped between the women, pulling their joined hands down a few inches from where they’d started.

Erin apologized and lifted her arm back as Jilly started the song over and they moved through the steps again. Erin’s arms burned with the effort of keeping them high, and she felt her body falling again by the third time the song played.

“This is my dance space,” Jilly said, taking a step back and holding her arms out. “And this is yours.” She raised Erin’s hands. “I don’t go into yours, you don’t go into mine. You’ve got to hold the frame.”

She moved and Erin followed, trying to stay relaxed but not soft as Jilly turned them in place.

“That’s better,” Jilly smiled after a few attempts. “You’re doing well, Erin. Really well.”

Erin grinned again, still moving in a small circle in Jilly’s arms.

“Do you want to do one more thing today?” Jilly asked. “I’ll have to go after that, and you already did a lot today, so it’s up to you.”

“No, I want to keep going,” Erin said, surprising herself with the honesty in her voice. She stood in silence as Jilly stepped back and explained the next step, twirls.

“This might be a little awkward because you’re a little taller than me and will be in heels,” Jilly said, walking slowly around Erin and holding one arm up in the air. “But if you bend at the knees a bit, it should be okay.”

She started the music and took Erin’s hands. “The best way to learn this, I think, is just to do it, so that’s what we’re going to do.”

Erin let the music wash over her as she moved comfortably between steps. She felt a smile tug at the corners of her mouth, and her eyes flicked towards Jilly’s.

“Okay, now you’re going to roll out slowly, and then roll back in,” Jilly instructed, pushing Erin gently with one arm.

Erin rolled out from Jilly’s body, straightening her arm and reaching the opposite hand away from her body before rolling back towards the blonde.

She moved to quickly, though, and felt her body collide harder than she’d meant to with Jilly, who groaned.

“Take it easy, Erin,” the blonde giggled. “A little slower.”

Erin nodded and shifted back into the starting position as Jilly started the song over again. Her roll this time was less violent, and Jilly grinned widely at her.

“That was good,” Jilly nodded. “Just remember to keep it… _gentle_. Now, real twirls. I need you to look into my eyes before you turn, and find my eyes again when you come back.”

“Got it,” Erin muttered.

Jilly took the lead again as they danced, and Erin kept up with her movements. Jilly lifted her arm, pulling Erin’s up with her, and Erin ducked under it as she turned. Her eyes found Jilly’s before she moved and fell back onto them as she finished the circle.

“Good, Erin!” Jilly exclaimed, dropping her arm to her side. Erin’s skin missed the warmth of the blonde’s hand on her own.

They moved through everything Erin had learned so far a few times, practicing twirls until Erin’s knees ached from bending them.

“That’s okay, it’s just about noon anyway,” Jilly heaved a sigh as she checked the time on her phone. “You did a lot today, Erin. You’re doing well. We’re going to kill it at the Shelldrake.”

Erin laughed but shook her head. “Thanks, Jilly. Same time tomorrow?”

“You got it, hot stuff,” Jilly winked. Erin felt the warmth rise to her cheeks as heat flooded her body. “See you in the morning. I’ll try to wake up on time.”

“See you tomorrow,” Erin waved cheerfully as she walked from the cabin, her bag hanging from her shoulder.

She spent the rest of the day dancing in her mind, picturing her body flowing perfectly through the moves Jilly had shown her that morning. She couldn’t stop the smile that flashed across her lips with each new thought.

***

The next four days followed the same routine. Each morning, Erin woke before the rest of her family and slipped out of their cabin. She danced up to the main house, swinging her hips smoothly as she moved. She put together three coffees, dropping one off and checking in on Penny before making her way to Jilly’s cabin at the back of the camp.

Each day, Erin worked to match Jilly’s movements and grace. She allowed herself to be dipped and twirled by the other woman, growing more confident and comfortable with her partner. Although she knew she was far from perfect, she was happy with the progress she’d made.

At least, she was until the end of the sixth lesson.

It had been a difficult day. They had been forced to move their lesson to the evening, after the camp activities were done for the day. Both of the women were tired, and it made both of the short-tempered. Erin had messed up considerably as she danced, mixing up steps and moving on the wrong beats.

“I think we need to call it a day,” Jilly growled, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. Her yellow glasses were pushed into her hair. She sat on the edge of her bed, slouched against the bedpost.

“Fine,” Erin groaned, falling back into the armchair in the middle of the room. Her feet throbbed and she kicked the heels she’d been getting used to off. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Jilly responded. Her voice was too high-pitched for Erin to take her seriously.

“No, it’s not,” Erin groaned, pressing her fists into her eyes and rubbing until she saw spots. “The dance is only a few days away and at this rate, we’ll never be ready. _I’ll_ never be ready,” she added quietly.

“Erin, you’ll be okay,” the blonde’s voice was tired. “We’ll pick it up tomorrow. We need to do lifts.”

Just the thought of being lifted into the air made Erin’s stomach churn. She flashed the other woman a small smile before slinging her bag over her shoulder. Guilt was flooding her veins and she could barely bring herself to look in Jilly’s direction as she walked to the cabin door. She had one hand resting on the doorknob when she felt warm fingers wrap around her other wrist.

“We’ll get it tomorrow, Erin. I promise,” Jilly’s voice was soft and low from behind Erin. The fingers around her wrist squeezed and she turned, bringing herself to face the blonde.

“I hope so, Jilly,” Erin’s muttered.

“We will,” Jilly repeated, reaching up to grasp Erin’s other hand.

Erin flicked her eyes up to meet the blonde’s, who held her gaze.

The world stilled around them again. Erin was beginning to expect it whenever the blonde met her eyes.

She stepped closer to Erin, cutting the distance between them in half. Erin’s pulse thudded through her body, echoing in her ears. Jilly let go of Erin’s left wrist and lifted it to Erin’s cheek, stroking her thumb along her jaw. It made her pulse pound even harder.

Erin rested her hands on Jilly’s hips, boldly pulling the woman even closer. Her back was against the door and she leaned backwards, relaxing into it.

“Erin,” Jilly warned, trying and failing to stop Erin from slipping her fingers into the belt loops of Jilly’s jean shorts and using them to tug the blonde’s hips even closer.

“Jillian,” Erin breathed, using the other woman’s full name. It had the desired effect, as a small gasp escaped the blonde’s lips.

“I can’t--we shouldn’t--” Jilly’s weak protests were accompanied by halfhearted attempts to pull away.

“Jilly,” Erin repeated, her voice low. “Just kiss me, please.”

Her eyes drifted closed as the blonde leaned closer, barely brushing their lips together before moaning and pulling backwards. Erin wasn’t expecting the movement and she lets go of Jilly’s hips quickly. The woman stumbles backwards, reaching out to grab the bedpost for support.

“I can’t,” Jilly looked panicked. “Please, go, Erin. I’ll see you in the morning.” A shadow passed over the blonde’s face before she turned away.

The night air was cool and bit against Erin’s warm skin as she walked quickly back to her cabin. Her heart clenched painfully with each step and it wasn’t until she felt a tear slide down her cheek that she recognized the sting of them in her eyes.

Erin slipped into bed half an hour later, after a quick shower and a few more tears. She stared up at the dark ceiling, trying to push the emotions from her mind. Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes, gathering in her hair. She had messed up and she knew she had messed up, with both the dance and the dance instructor.

Sleep evaded Erin for most of the night, and even when she was finally able to slip into an uneasy slumber, she dreamt of dances and kisses gone wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and for waiting for this update! I hope you liked it! I'm really excited to write the next chapter, so you probably won't have to wait as long for another update! If you loved it or hated it, come let me know why on Tumblr! (anothercaffeinatedlesbian!)


	8. i need you to see that you were meant for me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erin and Jilly both try to dance with short tempers the next morning. Jilly introduces some creative methods to help Erin learn lifts and Erin continues falling for Jilly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really, really sorry for how long this chapter got, but I didn't want to split it up because nowhere felt right.

Erin jerked awake the next morning. She was halfway out of bed before she remembered the events of the night before and fell back into the blankets with a groan. Embarrassment and sadness flared through her mind in equal measure, making her cheeks and eyes burn.

She let her mind drift to what had happened in Jilly’s cabin a few hours before. Her heart stuttered as she remembered how close she had been to the blonde, how the air between them had been alive with electricity as she drew the other woman closer to her body.

Her pulse was returning to normal when she remembered the way the blonde had pulled away from her, and the way she wouldn’t meet her eye as she said good night. Her heart clenched painfully and she screwed her eyes shut, willing her mind to think of anything else.

She tried to pinpoint the moment she went wrong. She knew she hadn’t misread the signs; she knew the blonde was interested in her too. Was Jilly really that scared to lose her job? Or had she wanted to kiss Erin, only to decide at the last minute that the younger woman just wasn’t worth it?

The air seeped from her lungs with the thought and she felt her eyes burn again. A single tear slipped from her eye into her hair before she shook her head violently and willed herself to breathe.

With a sigh, she heaved herself up in the bed. She swung her legs around and her feet hit the floor. She shuffled into the bathroom, drawing cool water into the shower. The spray made her breath catch in her lungs when she stepped into the tub.

She stepped from the shower fifteen minutes later, refreshed and thinking clearly. Her mind flashed through explanations and apologies as she toweled off, her stomach in knots as she thought ahead to having to dance with the blonde in a few days.

Erin dressed slowly, piecing together what she’d say to the dancer. She pulled on her favorite tank top (white with ‘never trust an atom…they make up everything’ in bold, black letters across the front) and jean shorts, slipping her phone into her back pocket.

Her father was sitting in the living room again when she stepped out of her room and pulled the door shut quietly behind her. She turned slowly, smiling at him.

“Leaving so early again?” he asked, setting the book he’d been reading down next to him.

“Yeah, I couldn’t sleep, so I wanted to go for an early walk…” her voice faded to silence. Her eyes darted around the room, looking anywhere but her father. They landed on the window and she glanced outside, looking for something to bring up as a reason why she’d be awake at that hour. Her heart sank as she realized fat droplets of rain were falling from the sky, but she quickly formed an excuse on her tongue. “A walk…in the rain. Helps me think, clears my mind.”

The smile that crossed her lips was tight, and she knew it felt fake, but her father didn’t say anything. He just nodded.

“I understand,” he said slowly, gesturing towards the door.

Erin held her breath as she darted towards the door, opening it and closing it behind her silently. The sound of rain falling around her filled her ears. She stepped from the cabin porch into the rain, hunching her shoulders and ducking her head against the water.

She walked quickly to the main house, suddenly glad for the rain because it gave her something else to think about besides the growing doom she felt in her chest. The building was cool as she stepped through the door, raising goosebumps along her arms and legs. She shivered as she made two cups of coffee.

Grabbing a cup in each hand, she forced her mind to slow down as she turned around and walked back to the doors outside. She stepped slowly into the rain, accepting that she would be soaked through all day as she walked slowly to the back of the resort.

As she walked, she planned out her speech to Jilly. She put together an apology and an explanation – that she had been tired, and was sorrier than she could explain, and that she hadn’t known what she’d been doing because she’d been thinking about dancing – sounded almost-enough in her head.

She was already afraid of what would happen to her resolve the second she saw Jilly.

Despite the rain, the walk between the main house and the dancer’s cabin took half as long as usual. However, due to her slow movements throughout the morning, it was almost 10:30 by the time she stood in front of the other woman’s door.

Erin took a deep breath as she shifted, holding both coffees in one hand and raising the other in a fist to knock. She only tapped twice when the door flew open, revealing a fully-dressed and serious-looking Jilly.

“We’re in the studio today. A better stage area. So you can get a feel of where we’ll be dancing,” the other woman’s voice was tight as she pushed past Erin, knocking into Erin’s hand as she moved. “It’s empty all day, me and Patty had it to rehearse the whole day.” The last sentence was thrown over her shoulder.

“Hey!” Erin shouted as the other woman skipped down the steps. Her body was frozen in shock and she stood still, warm coffee dripping down her bare arm.

“What, Erin? We have work to do,” Jilly’s voice was firm and hard, and Erin’s heart squeezed at the change.

“Can you at least take the coffee so I can wipe my hand off? Please?” Erin snapped. She didn’t know what she hoped to accomplish by dragging her already-wet hand over her wetter clothes, but she held the cup out to the blonde, who groaned and took it. “Thank you.”

“So today we’re going to do the whole dance. Then Penny is going to watch and tell you everything you’re doing wrong,” the blonde’s voice was bitter as she spat the words, and Erin watched a wave of regret pass over her features as she heard the harshness in her own words. “Ouch. I’m sorry about that. I just mean Penny is going to watch and critique both of us.”

“Okay, fine,” Erin muttered, stepping heavily down the stairs and following the blonde down the path.

They walked towards the main part of camp to a large white building Erin had never noticed before. Jilly unlocked and opened the door with a single turn of her hand and Erin followed her into the big room inside.

It was big, and the cool air bit at Erin’s skin as the room lit up around her. Jilly hung her jacket over a chair in the corner before walking over to a fancy-looking sound system. She rubbed her arms as she waited for it to turn on, and Erin followed her fingers as they traveled over her own skin.

Her mind, which had been so focused on her apology, slipped towards more pleasant things and her body warmed up quickly despite the chill.

Erin set her coffee cup on a windowsill, forcing herself to breathe deeply and focus on the dark trees outside. She turned around when she heart music trickle quietly from speakers around the room, growing louder as she moved.

“Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?” Jilly said, standing stiffly in front of Erin. Her arms seemed to stretch further from her body than usual, as if standing too close to Erin would burn her.

“No!” Erin shouted, her voice echoing around the room. “Why are you acting so weird?”

“You’re the one who’s acting weird, Erin,” Jilly’s voice was light but measured. Her arms dropped, crossing over her chest.

“Are you just going to pretend last night didn’t happen?” Erin’s voice shook. She stepped closer to the blonde, who stepped backwards.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Erin,” Jilly’s voice was still dangerously even. Her eyes darted everywhere except Erin’s face.

“Yes, you do, Jilly,” Erin said, her head moving as it followed Jilly’s blue eyes. She groaned before grapping the blonde’s wrists and squeezing, holding them until Jilly’s eyes met hers.

“I _can’t_ , Erin,” Jilly hissed between clenched teeth. “I can’t, so I’m pretending it didn’t happen.”

The words washed over Erin, who processed them for a minute before replying. “And you can’t talk about that?”

Jilly just shook her head and yanked her hands free of Erin’s before she could close her fingers around them again.

“So we’re going to dance,” Jilly said, the sentence a command. She stepped backwards again, turning towards the sound system.

Erin felt a wave of emotions pass through her body. Her blood boiled in anger at the blonde’s dismissal, but her heart thudded heavily at her immediate rejection. She felt her face crumble into a confused frown as she tried to work out the sudden barrage of feelings throughout her body.

The opening notes of the song cut through the haze and pulled her back to reality. Jilly settled herself in front of Erin and held out her arms, still a little further from her body than usual.

Erin stepped into her place, hands finding Jilly’s hand on one side and shoulder on the other. They started moving in the same breath, Erin following where Jilly lead.

Erin was the first to misstep, toes treading on Jilly’s when she moved on the wrong beat.

The blonde groaned and rubbed her eyes roughly, stepping back. She rolled her head back on her shoulders, then sighed.

“Gotta focus, Er,” Jilly said tiredly.

“I’m sorry,” Erin said, staring at the floor. Her voice was small. She stepped back and held out her arms as the other woman pulled a remote from her pocket and restarted the song.

Jilly made the second mistake, stepping into Erin’s space before she had a chance to turn.

Erin’s body collided with Jilly’s. Her upper arm pressed against the other woman’s chest and she felt a warm breath tickle over her shoulder as Jilly pushed into her. It drove the air from her own body and sent sparks cartwheeling through her chest and she jumped away from it.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Jilly muttered, spinning all the way around on her heel and pulling the remote from her pocket again.

The song started over again and Erin fell back into place, lifting her hand to meet Jilly’s.

Erin made the next three mistakes. Then, Jilly made two.

They struggled between each attempt. Erin could feel the fuse between them shortening, and knew that her own walls would crumble soon. She felt the anger and frustration bubbling just below the surface and willed it down with deep breaths as she clenched her fists.

Jilly’s instructions became sharper and her apologies shorter as the mistakes continued. Frustration rolled from her body in waves so thick Erin could almost feel them crashing over her.

The spark finally caught after the next mistake. It was Erin’s, the last move at the very end of the best routine of the day.

She stepped forward and crouched on the floor, one leg bent in front of her and the other straight out behind her. Jilly was posed the same way next to her and they were both thrown back, heads over their legs.

Erin felt that her body was doing something it shouldn’t be a moment too late. She tilted towards Jilly, feeling her body weight shift to the side. She grabbed at the other woman’s hip and steadied herself, pulling Jilly towards her as she did so.

“Jesus, Erin! Are you trying to kill me?” Jilly yelled, rolling out from under Erin’s arm and up from the floor. She paused the music and then stood with her hands on her hips and stared at Erin. “You’ve gotta concentrate! Or is this your idea of fun?” Jilly shifted her weight from leg to leg, stretching her body out.

Erin pushed her bangs out of her eyes and brought the hem of her shirt up to wipe her face. She gritted her teeth and snorted a short laugh before responding, finally letting the anger and frustration take control of her words.

“Oh yeah, as a matter of fact, it is,” Erin spat, one hand on her hip while the other waved through the air next to her. “We’re supposed to do the show in _two day_ s! You won’t show me lifts, I’m not sure on turns, I’m doing all this to save _your ass_ , so what I _really_ want to do is drop you on it! Not to mention, you’re completely ignoring the fact that last night happened and I’m just not okay with that!”

Erin stared at Jilly as the blonde processed her words. She breathed heavily and for a few seconds that was the only sound in the room.

Jilly straightened up and broke the silence first. “So let’s get out of here,” she said, jerking her head in the direction of the door.

“What?” Erin asked, frowning at the other woman. She was confused. “To where? I thought we were practicing here today.”

“You heard me, let’s go,” Jilly said, pulling a ring of keys from her pocket. She waved at Erin to follow her.

The rain was even heavier than it had been when she had left her own cabin a few hours earlier. It fell in sheets, drenching everything. The main house, which Erin had seen from across the resort on her way into the dance studio, was no longer visible.

“Here,” Jilly said, turning towards Erin after she had locked the door to the dance studio behind her, a note of apology taped to it. She held her jacket above Erin’s head and Erin gratefully ducked into it, following Jilly’s footsteps as she walked up the path.

Before Erin thought to ask where they were going she recognized Penny’s cabin. Jilly waved a hand to stop Erin from climbing the stairs behind her. Erin stood in the rain for a few minutes while Jilly went inside.

“I told her we won’t need her later. She said she’s feeling sick anyway,” Jilly said quietly.

Something in her voice made Erin’s stomach turn with worry, but she pushed it down. They walked on in silence until Erin could make out Jilly’s cabin standing out against the rain. She increased her pace, more than happy to get out of the rain, but felt a tug at the bottom of the jacket she still had above her head.

“C’mere,” Jilly said, pulling Erin around her cabin to where an old red and white truck sat. Erin climbed inside, taking in the interior of the car.

The sleekness of the dashboard stood out in stark contrast to the outside of the truck. Erin swept her gaze over the buttons and controls, only able to recognize what half of them were for. She made out the radio and temperature controls, as well as some of the more common features one would expect to find in a car, but there were several more with unusual symbols or no markings at all that she couldn’t identify. The whole surface glowed a soft blue, cutting through the gray of the day outside.

“You like it?” Jilly asked, wiggling her eyebrows at Erin, who was still glancing around the front of the truck. “As you can probably tell, I’ve done a bunch of modifications on this baby,” she chuckled, tapping the steering wheel.

“You did this?” Erin gasped. Her eyes swept over the length of the dashboard again. “What does it all _do_?”

“Sure did,” Jilly laughed again. “There’s definitely more of my own work in here than original parts. Some of it’s just for flash, different lights and sounds and stuff, but there have been some substantial, questionable legal alterations to the motor system as well.” Jilly threw Erin a wink as she finished her statement.

Erin just shook her head, offering a nervous chuckle as she tugged on her seatbelt, ensuring it was tight. “Thank you for not removing these, at least.”

Jilly snorted, pulling her iPod from her pocket and plugging it into the auxiliary cord that dangled from the center of the dashboard. She handed the small device to Erin.

“Pick whatever, I’m sure you’ll find something on there you like,” Jilly said as she slipped the key into the ignition and the car hummed silently to life around Erin.

She flicked through the song listing on the iPod, thumb hovering over each song she knew. Her choices ranged from Top 40 to hits from the ‘90s and early 2000s to classical pieces, along with a large number of options she was sure Jilly taught dance lessons to.

Eventually, she settled on just hitting the shuffle button. An unfamiliar song trickled out of the speakers and Erin looked up from her lap. They were driving along the road out of the resort, and the trees started to grow closer and closer together.

Erin sat in comfortable silence as Jilly drove, letting the music wash over her. When the first song faded out she clicked on the device’s screen again and flicked through until it landed on one she knew. She started to sing along quietly, glancing over at Jilly to see her reaction. The other woman was smiling.

She was confused by how fast the other woman seemed to change her mind, and how quickly she cycled through emotions. Erin felt her heart sink as she wondered if there had ever been any emotions in the first place, once again worried she’d misread signals that were never there to begin with.

Erin, lost in her thoughts, barely noticed as the first song ended and the words and tempo shifted to a new one. It wasn’t until Jilly opened the front windows as far as they could go and started screaming in pure joy, one arm flung out the window as her body leaned against her door in a way that probably wasn’t safe to be driving.

Erin stared at the other woman, ignoring the rain that was dripping in through the open window and soaking half her body. “You’re crazy!” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

Jilly just let out another whoop of joy as she turned the truck, leaving the main road for a smaller one. She drove slower, maneuvering the truck carefully around twists and turns in the road.

“I know, thank you,” Jilly laughed again, but slid both windows up. Erin pushed damp hair from her eyes and looked at the other woman. After a few seconds of silence, the blonde started talking. “So how did you decide to study the paranormal?”

The question caught Erin off-guard. She’d been hoping for a chance to talk to the other woman about it since their first dance lesson, when Erin had found out the other woman also believed in ghosts. She knew Jilly wouldn’t think she was crazy, but her voice was still small when she opened her mouth to speak after a deep breath and a sigh.

“I saw a ghost,” she said, slowly at first. “I was eight, and the mean old lady who lived next to us died. I woke up in the middle of the night and she was just standing at the foot of my bed. Just…staring at me. Every night for almost a year. She never did anything but stare and smile, but it was the kind of smile that was cold and empty.” Erin felt a shudder pass through her body and she was silent for a few seconds.

“Geez, Erin, I’m sorry,” Jilly said, her voice sincere. “What did you do?”

“I told my parents. They…didn’t believe me. Still don’t believe me. They had me in therapy for years, until I could finally tell them all what they wanted to hear. The other kids at school found out and called me Ghost Girl. Nobody ever believed me, until I met Abby. I guess…she’s kind of my Patty,” Erin said. Her throat was tight and she swallowed the lump that had risen in it.

“Kids are awful, Er, I know,” Jilly said. Erin watched her grip the steering wheel so hard her knuckles turned white, and wondered what had happened to the other woman to make her more serious now than Erin had seen her yet.

“It’s okay. Well, _now_ it’s okay. I kind of own it,” Erin shrugged, staring through the front window. “I don’t exactly try to keep the fact that I want to major in physics for this reason a secret. I stopped letting people use it against me after I met Abby, because I knew there was always at least one other person who believed in me.”

Jilly didn’t respond, but flashed Erin a comforting smile. The song coming from the speakers stopped, and Erin turned on the screen again, flicking through songs until she settled on another before shifting in her seat to look at the other woman.

“Why do you want to prove ghosts exist, Jilly?”

“Because someone once told me they didn’t,” the blonde offered. Erin noticed as her grip on the steering wheel tightened again, but her wide smile didn’t shrink as she glanced in Erin’s direction.

“Who?”

“Foster mom. I was six. I was watching a show with my foster brothers and said it would be really cool to talk to a ghost because they’d be, like, super old and probably super smart. ‘Ghosts don’t exist, Jillian.’ That’s all she said, but I swore to myself then that I’d prove they did,” Jilly said, an edge of hesitation in her voice.

Erin sensed she was holding something back but ignored the feeling, instead slipping back into silence as Jilly continued to drive. She set the iPod on the middle of the seat between her legs and Jilly’s before leaning up and pulling her phone from her back pocket. It had managed to somehow stay dry and she was grateful as she sent a text to her sister, asking her to let their parents know that she wouldn’t be back for dinner that day.

A song that Erin didn’t know started up and she reached for the iPod. Erin’s fingers found the device and she clicked through to the next song before feeling something brush against her hand. She looked down and saw Jilly’s hand reaching slowly out towards hers.

Jilly’s fingers brushed over the back of her hand, sending a jolt up her arm to her shoulder. She quickly dropped the device and moved to pull her hand back, expecting the blonde to do the same, but she didn’t.

Instead, Jilly slipped her fingers between Erin’s on top of the iPod. Erin glanced between their linked hands and the blonde’s face.

Jilly kept her eyes fixed on the road in front of them, but opened her mouth to speak. “We aren’t at MacKay’s anymore,” she said, her voice soft and nervous.

Conflicting emotions welled up in Erin’s chest again but she relaxed into her seat, letting the electricity dance over her skin from the contact with the other woman’s hand outweigh the memories from the night before that were threatening to push their way to the surface of her mind.

Erin’s heart fluttered as she stared at the other woman’s hand over her own. Her entire body warmed from the heat radiating from the spots where their skin touched.

Too soon, Jilly was slowing the truck down, pulling to a stop and letting go of Erin’s hand to throw it into park. They were completely off the road, parked just beyond a line of trees in an open field. The rain had stopped, and sun was shining down on them. When Erin climbed out of the truck, she saw that a creek also ran through the trees.

That’s where Jilly led her first, making her way carefully to a deeper part of the water. A fallen tree stretched from the bank they stood on to the other side, where Erin caught glimpse of a lake between the trees.

Jilly peeled her jacket from her shoulders and tossed it on the ground next to the tree. She had on a thin, white V-neck t-shirt underneath, and Erin saw flashes of a blue sports bra. Sitting down, she unlaced her boots and tossed them next to her jacket, throwing her socks on top.

Erin followed her, slipping her cell phone from her pocket and tossing it next to her shoes. Jilly moved to the end of the fallen tree and Erin moved next to her.

“Balance,” Jilly said, not explaining further before she stepped out onto the tree. She shuffled forward, her movements coming as easily as they had when Erin watched her on the dance floor.

Erin put one foot on the tree, but Jilly held up her hand.

“The most important thing to remember in lifts is _balance_ ,” she said, her arms held gracefully out from her body as her eyes locked on Erin’s. She jumped suddenly, the whole trunk shaking beneath her when she landed. Her body wavered back and forth before she righted herself, laughing. She shuffled her feet to prove she was steady.

“So, where did you learn to be a dancer, if you’re a scientist?” Erin asked, sitting down on the tree with a leg dangling over each side, her toes almost touching the water below.

Jilly turned on one foot and faced the opposite bank. “I just kind of fell into it in college. I went on a full scholarship, so I was expected to keep on the straight and narrow, meaning no poofs in the lab,” she said over her shoulder, bringing the memory of Jilly stitching up Penny’s leg back to Erin’s mind. “So I started going to the gym to let out some energy. It helped me focus more in the lab. I just kind of picked dancing up along the way.”

Jilly turned back to Erin and, for the second time that morning, she felt the other woman was hiding something from her. There was a note of hesitation in her voice when she talked, and the smile on her face was too tight to be genuine.

She started walking backwards and forwards along the tree. Erin watched her for a minute before she took a deep breath. “I can tell that’s not all of it. You didn’t tell me the whole story earlier, either, about believing in ghosts. I’m not letting you off that easy, tell me how you really learned to dance.”

The blonde stilled her body, staring thoughtfully at a knot in the wood between her and Erin.

“So I bounced from foster home to foster home as a kid,” she started slowly, crouching down and lifting herself up onto her arms before sitting down a few feet from Erin, facing her. “But something most had in common was a foster sister who did dance. I asked if I could dance too, with the first family, but my foster mom said no. Well, she actually laughed at me, then so did my foster siblings.” She frowned, pulling at the bark on the tree.

Erin let silence fall over them for a few moments, listening to the flow of the water beneath them, before Jilly took a deep breath. “But I always went and watched, and then danced by myself at night. It just felt… _right_ when I was dancing. I had no idea if what I was doing was right, but I enjoyed it. When the internet rolled around, I started watching videos when I could, and started learning about what I’d been doing. I tried to join a club in high school, but they were all so, so mean when they found out I’d never actually been taught how to dance.”

Erin’s mind flashed back to the way Jilly had gripped the steering wheel when Erin had told her about the taunting and teasing she’d endured, and understood.

“So I went to college for physics. The full scholarship thing was true. Turns out I’m actually kind of really smart, who would’ve guessed?” Jilly laughed, still digging at the bark in front of her. “And the gym thing was true, too. I did start going to dance classes at my university, and ended up learning it all really fast. By my sophomore year I was teaching lessons. One of the other instructors had this job before me and told me about it. I’ve been here every summer since. It pays the bills for the next semester, rent and books and everything I can’t cover as a research assistant now, in grad school.”

Erin stared at Jilly as she talked, and let the silence hang in the air between them. She opened her mouth to say something but the blonde cut in.

“And this gig gives me a chance to be someone else for a little while. In a couple weeks, I’ll be the loud, obnoxious girl in the front of the lab who picks materials out of the dumpster and blows something up at least once a week,” she said, bringing her eyes up to meet Erin’s. “Here, I can be confident and graceful and everything I’m not back home, because what I’m giving isn’t really myself anyway, you know? These people wouldn’t want that. I’m not Holtzmann when I’m here. I’m Jilly.”

Erin’s mind filled with images of the past few days, of the small instants she’d seen Jilly in. Moments when the blonde’s mask cool confidence dropped and she was excited about something or being silly or sweet as she helped Erin up from where she’d fallen or tried to keep her laughter contained.

She realized in that moment just how badly she _did_ want that side of Jilly, the Holtzmann side of her, and she bit her lip to keep the words from tumbling out.

“Well, now that _that_ awkward and painful disclosure is over with,” Jilly sighed, leaning back up on her hands and pulling her legs up onto the tree. She rose and crouched, one food in front of the other, and reached her hand out toward Erin. She crooked one finger, gesturing for Erin to join her. “Come on out here.”

“Oh, no way, Jilly, I can’t do that!” Erin said, digging her fingertips into the bark in a feeble attempt to secure her position.

“Come on, Erin,” Jilly repeated, a grin on her lips. “And remember, _balance_.”

“Jilly, seriously, I can’t even get up. How did I get so far out here?” Erin turned around, unsure of how she had ended up a few feet from the bank of the creek. She shifted her weight forward in an effort to lift herself up onto her arms but wobbled a little. Her grip on the trunk tightened.

“Here,” Jilly said, shuffling towards Erin. She reached both hands down and Erin grabbed them, pulling herself up and swinging her feet onto the log in front of her.

Jilly steadied her as she stood up, legs tense and shaking from her hips to her ankles. She threw her arms out from her body and willed herself to relax. Her eyes were fastened on the brown bark beneath her feet.

“No, eyes here. Look up, look at me,” Jilly said, hooking a finger under Erin’s chin and pressing up slightly, pulling Erin’s gaze with her. “Good.”

Jilly’s hands shifted, one taking Erin’s and raising it while the other settled on her hip. They fell into their starting position and Erin tried to will her body to relax, knowing Jilly would expect her to move.

The blonde made the first move, moving one foot behind the other as Erin shifted her back foot forwards. She swung her leg too widely and tensed, feeling her body weight shift as she grabbed onto Jilly’s shoulder for balance.

She laughed nervously as the other woman steadied her with a smile. Jilly barely missed a beat, continuing to move backwards. Erin moved with her, confidence growing with each step. Her legs still shook and wobbled, but her movements were mostly smooth.

“Good, Erin,” Jilly said when they were halfway between the banks of the creek. She dropped her arms, letting her hands fall from Erin’s body.

Erin shuddered once at the loss of contact but quickly grounded herself again, feeling the rough surface of the tree beneath her feet. Jilly started moving in front of her, swinging her arms and twisting her hips along with a beat in her head.

“Come on, dance,” Jilly said, winking at Erin. “Balance.”

Erin’s movements were jerky at first, pausing after each step to regain her balance. She started to get used to the sensations and felt her muscles loosen slightly. She relaxed into a smooth rhythm, letting her body move without planning what she was going to do next.

Jilly mirrored her moves, swinging and circling her hips a little more than Erin could manage. Erin’s eyes traveled over her body and took in every movement. Each one made Erin’s heart thud heavily and she licked her lips as she watched.

They danced for a few minutes, Erin feeling more confident in herself with each step she took. Eventually, the other woman straightened up, then turned to face Erin again. She held out her arms and Erin stepped into them, following as Jilly pulled her towards the opposite bank from where they’d started.

Jilly hopped down from the tree and turned, offering her hand to Erin. She didn’t let go when Erin was firmly on the ground, instead shifting her hand so that their fingers were laced together.

She led Erin a short way through the trees until they emerged into a clearing similar to the one they’d parked in. She turned to face Erin, still holding her hand.

“Do you trust me?” Jilly asked, her voice low.

Erin thought back to the first time Jilly had asked her that question, when they had danced together the first night Erin had been at the resort.

“Yes,” she said, nodding.

“Okay. You will hurt me if you do not trust me, Erin,” she said, emphasizing each word. She met Erin’s eyes before taking a few steps back into the field.

Erin shifted her weight nervously from one foot to the other. The ground looked too hard for her to be comfortable with the idea of falling onto it from above Jilly’s head.

“What you’re going to do is run, and bend your knees and go up. Go, go, go, go,” she called, waving Erin towards her.

Erin stepped quickly, feeling her stomach clench each time her foot met the ground. Jilly bent into the contact when Erin was close enough, gripping her hips as Erin placed her hands on the other woman’s shoulders. She tried to spring off from the ground but her body tightened at the last second, hesitating.

“And trust me, Erin. You have to trust me,” the blonde repeated, accelerating backwards a few more steps. “Again.”

Erin ran to the blonde again. She fought to keep her body calm, but instinct took over as she approached the other woman. Jilly lifted her higher this time, holding Erin above her head as Erin pushed herself up on Jilly’s shoulders.

She slid down the other woman’s body, barely steadying herself before Jilly pulled away again. She stepped back, widening the distance between her body and Erin’s.

“Again,” she called, waving her hands.

Erin closed the distance between them easily, this time expecting the blonde to lift her completely over her head. She angled her body, knocking Jilly off balance and pushing them both dangerously towards the ground.

She let out a scream of laughter as she caught herself on the ground, coming to rest with her hands on either side of Jilly’s head while her legs straddled the other woman’s waist. Jilly’s hands still clutched Erin’s hips.

Her eyes locked on Jilly’s blue ones and the laughter faded from her lips. Her heart thudded heavily throughout her body. She was suddenly very aware of the way the other woman’s fingers felt against her hipbones and the pressure she felt at her center where it was resting on Jilly’s lower stomach.

Erin’s breath caught in her lungs and she heard a gasp fall over Jilly’s lips before the other woman shut her eyes and sighed through her nose. A smile spread over her lips.

“You know, the best place to practice lifts is in the water,” she said, opening her eyes as her voice faded out. She rolled Erin off of her body and stood up.

Erin’s heart stuttered back to a regular pace as she stood up, already missing the feeling of the other woman beneath her. She followed Jilly to the edge of the lake she had glimpsed earlier.

She stood at the edge of the lake, peering into the water. Jilly slipped her t-shirt over her head and dropped it onto the ground.

Erin glanced quickly at the blonde before averting her eyes, a blush rising to her cheeks. The familiar heat returned, settling in her lower stomach and between her legs, as she thought of the half-naked dancer next to her.

“You can look, yaknow,” Jilly laughed. “It’s not like you haven’t seen it before, right?”

Erin’s cheeks burned redder as she realized the blonde had known she was watching her change the first morning.

“Sorry,” she muttered, dropping her eyes again.

“It’s fine, hot stuff,” Jilly laughed again, clearly enjoying herself. “You might want to consider taking yours off too, anyway. It would be a shame to ruin that nice shirt, which is hilarious, by the way.”

She raised her eyes to meet Jilly’s, and was met with a wink that brought a pink glow back to her cheeks.

Slowly, she raised the tank top above her head and tossed it near where Jilly had dropped hers. She kept her eyes planted firmly on the ground, willing herself not to stare at the other woman.

Jilly stepped into her line of sight and Erin’s eyes darted away, turning out to the water instead. She felt a hand against her cheek, putting slight pressure on her head and turning it back.

“You’re going to have to actually go into the water, you know,” Jilly smirked. Erin opened her mouth to reply when Jilly shifted her other hand to Erin’s side and pushed.

Erin let out a strangled scream as her body left the bank of the lake and made contact with the water. She heard Jilly splash in next to her as she planted her feet on the rocky bottom of the lake and stood up, water running down her body.

“Asshole,” she gasped as she pushed the hair from her face. She couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across her lips as Jilly howled with laughter next to her.

“Sorry, but I couldn’t resist,” she said once she’d caught her breath. Her fingers brushed over Erin’s and she grabbed her hand. “Come on, we need to go a little deeper.”

“That’s what she said?” Erin joked, giggling at herself as the other woman rolled her eyes, but followed as Jilly pulled her into deeper water.

They stopped when the water splashed against the band of Jilly’s sports bra. She situated herself in front of Erin and rested her hands on Erin’s hips. Erin grabbed Jilly’s shoulders and squeezed, sighing as she prepared herself.

“Bend your knees,” Jilly instructed, bending down with Erin. “And…go!”

Erin pushed off from the slippery rocks beneath her feet, feeling the water fall from her body as she broke the surface and continued upwards. Jilly’s hands tightened on her hips and lifted her. Her momentum was too much and she felt herself arcing, continuing past the blonde’s head and falling towards the water.

She screamed just before she broke the surface of the water, holding her breath as she went under, dragging the other woman with her. She emerged and spat a mouthful of water out, laughing.

Jilly’s head broke through the water a second later. Her laughter was punctuated by coughs and she slapped out at the water, splashing Erin.

“You have to lock your frame and hold it,” she said once she caught her breath. “Let’s try again.”

They practiced until the skin on Erin’s fingers wrinkled and she felt a slight burn across her shoulders from the sun, which was bright enough to make up for the pouring rain earlier in the morning. She was exhausted, but she ignored the ache deep in her body, focusing instead on the way Jilly’s laughter echoed across the lake each time she lifted Erin.

“Last time, okay? You’re doing great,” Jilly said, cupping Erin’s waist in her hands.

Erin was sure she would have permanent marks from where the blonde’s fingers had dug into her hips all afternoon, but she didn’t mind.

Erin bent her knees and sprung upwards, feeling her body shift and tighten as Jilly took her weight on her hands and lifted her up until she was parallel with the water. Erin spread her arms out from her body like wings and grinned.

“Perfect!” Jilly shouted, happiness in her voice.

Erin let herself fall forward so that she was diving into the water, grin still on her lips. She laughed when she emerged, wiping water from her eyes. Her laughter was cut short when Jilly threw herself onto Erin, kicking her legs out from under her at the same time.

Her arms tightened around the other woman when she went under the surface. They were a tangle of limbs as they both tried to find their footing. Erin gave up after a few seconds and simply clung to Jilly. The blonde steadied herself and rose from the water, Erin’s arms still slung across her shoulders.

Erin’s eyes were dangerously close to Jilly’s and she locked on them, staring into the bright blue circles in front of her. Her breath caught in her lungs again as her heartbeat raced.

Jilly was the first one to move, shifting her arms around Erin’s back and holding her against her own body. Erin wrapped her legs around Jilly’s waist under the water.

“Erin,” Jilly breathed out, her voice strained again. “Fuck, I can’t do this anymore.”

She leaned in, and Erin barely had a moment to gather herself before Jilly pressed her lips against Erin’s, hard.

Erin shifted one hand to Jilly’s neck, wrapping her fingers around it and holding her in place. Her brain could only form one command – _more_. Erin wanted more of the blonde. She ran her other hand along the blonde’s bare back, dragging one fingertip up and down her spine. Jilly shuddered, and Erin grinned at the sensation of the other woman moving against her.

Her body reacted as Jilly’s hands drifted across her skin, leaving trails blazing across her back and shoulders with each brush of her fingers. When Jilly’s lips left hers and latched onto her neck instead, she let out a high gasp that made the other woman chuckle against her skin.

She didn’t know how long she hung there, hands exploring every inch of the other woman’s body she could reach. She would have been content to stay pressed against Jilly all afternoon, but the other woman eventually pulled back with a sigh and a sad glance at Erin’s eyes.

“We should probably head back to MacKay’s,” she said. “I’m not sure what time it is but I know it can’t be early.”

Erin reluctantly let go of the other woman, sliding down her body until she was back in the water. They walked slowly through the water until they reached the shore, shaking excess water from their bodies. Erin slipped her tank top over her head and squeezed out her hair, twisting it up into a ponytail.

Jilly started to walk away, back towards the trees they came through, but Erin reached out and grabbed her hand. She spun around and Erin wrapped her arms around the other woman’s waist, pressing another kiss to her lips.

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” she said breathlessly, smiling against Jilly’s lips.

Jilly leaned back and grinned at her, pecking her on the cheek before turning and tugging on her hand.

They walked back to the fallen tree, shoulders and hips bumping together as their linked hands hung between them. Jilly darted quickly across the tree and Erin followed, slipping her socks and shoes back on when she reached the other side before walking back to where Jilly’s truck was parked.

Erin reached her hand out to open the door when they arrived at the truck, but Jilly grabbed her arm and spun her around. Erin’s back was against the side of the truck and Jilly’s hands were planted on either side of her head.

Erin’s hands rested on Jilly’s hips as the blonde kissed her again, feeling as Jilly’s hands brushed down to her shoulders, over her chest, and came to a stop on her hips. The entire motion made Erin weak in the knees and she moaned as shockwaves passed over her body, rippling out from the lines the blonde had brushed down her body.

Jilly grinned into the kiss when Erin moaned, squeezing her hips tightly before stepping back and reaching behind Erin to tug on the door handle. Erin’s eyes were still closed as she rolled off the door and slipped into the truck. A wide grin was stuck on her face as she pulled the seatbelt across her chest. She knew she was stepping into dangerous territory, and that the uncontainable smile on her face would soon shatter, but she ignored her brain’s warnings and reveled in her happiness instead.

Jilly slipped into the driver’s seat and turned the keys in the ignition, carefully swinging the truck around and heading up the path they had come down earlier in the day. Erin hit the shuffle button and let the iPod play, nodding happily along with each song that came on.

Once Jilly swung the truck back onto the winding gravel path, her hand brushed over Erin’s, still holding the iPod in her lap. Erin happily slipped her fingers between the other woman’s, holding her hand there until they passed the sign welcoming them back to the resort.

“Erin,” Jilly’s voice was soft. She started telling Erin the things she’d known were coming, but the tone of her voice still made Erin’s heart tighten painfully. “We…this--”

“Can’t happen here. I know,” Erin said, staring at her knees. She felt the truck slowing down and the next moment Jilly was pulling off the main road and throwing it into park in the grass.

“Can you please look at me, Erin?” Jilly’s voice was still soft, but even sadder.

Erin shifted her gaze to meet Jilly’s eyes, but pulled her hand slowly away from the other woman’s. Jilly’s face fell as she did, and Erin knew the same gloominess was written across her own face.

“I need you to understand,” her voice was almost a whisper. “I can’t lose this job.”

Erin nodded tensely, dropping her eyes and staring at the seat between her legs and Jilly’s.

“I do understand,” she said, dragging the words past the lump in her throat. “We’re dance partners. That’s all. We can get through the dance in two days and then we don’t have do this anymore.”

She swallowed, blinking back tears before opening her mouth to give life to the thought that had been tugging at her mind since they’d started the drive back. “Besides, I’m leaving and you’re leaving at the end of this, and we won’t see each other again.”

Her eyes darted up to Jilly’s, and the sadness in the other woman’s eyes drove the air from her lungs. They sat in silence for a few minutes, only the sound of uneven breathing cutting through the air.

“We should go back,” Erin said, finally tearing her eyes away from Jilly’s.

She stared through the window as Jilly shifted the truck into drive and it climbed back onto the road. The resort came into view and she suddenly felt too confined in the truck, like the crackling electricity taking over the air between her and Jilly could explode at any moment. She fought to control her breathing as Jilly drove slowly through the back of camp.

Erin scrambled from the truck as soon as Jilly had stopped, leaning on her knees and gulping down fresh air as soon as her feet were on the ground.

“Erin,” Jilly called from the other side of the truck. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” Erin called back, straightening up and forcing herself to take deep, even breaths. She pasted a smile across her face as she turned toward the blonde. “Thank you for the extra lesson. It helped. And I’m sorry for snapping this morning.”

“It’s okay, Erin,” Jilly said, walking around the front of the truck and meeting Erin on the other side.

Erin stepped backwards quickly and watched as the blonde’s eyes flashed. “I am going to go home and take a shower. Same time tomorrow?” Her pulse thudded through her body and tears threatened to splash over her lashes, but she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek.

“Yeah, I guess. In the studio,” Jilly’s voice was quiet. “And Erin…I’m sorry.” Her eyes dropped to the ground.

Erin felt her chest collapse as the weight of the other woman’s words hit her. “I am too, Jilly. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She turned on her heel and walked away quickly, making her way down the gravel path towards the main area of the resort and her family’s cabin. The ground swam in front of her as hot tears prickled in her eyes and she swiped the back of her hand across her face.

Her feet pounded hard against the gravel as she made her way back to her cabin. It was just after 5:00, and she knew her family would be at dinner.

The tear slipped down her cheek the moment she heard the door click shut behind her, and then she couldn’t keep them in. She undressed slowly and sat on the floor of the shower, letting the hot water run over her body until she didn’t know where her tears ended and where the shower began.

She collapsed, out of tears, into bed an hour later. She was absolutely exhausted, but her brain wouldn’t slow down enough for her to think about anything other than the sadness that was weighing at her heart.

And she couldn’t even put her finger on she was sad, exactly. She barely knew Jilly, yet she had allowed herself to feel so much more than she had ever felt before over the few days with the blonde. She had allowed herself to become confident and sure in herself, and had seen those things reflected back in Jilly’s eyes whenever they met.

That happiness was the last thing her mind closed around before she drifted off to an early sleep, eyes dry for the first time since she’d gotten back to the resort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for sticking through this chapter! I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it (because I absolutely loved writing this one). Again, I'm sorry it's so damn long. As always, if you loved it or hated it, come tell me why on Tumblr at anothercaffeinatedlesbian.


	9. just a fool to believe i have anything she needs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erin faces Jilly the day after their trip away from camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your patience! This chapter/the next few maybe are going to stray farther from the movie's plot line, so hopefully that's okay as you're reading. I hope you enjoy!

For the second morning in a row, Erin snapped out of sleep. Happiness from the night before lingered in her chest and she smiled for a moment before the rest of her body followed her mind into consciousness. Within a few seconds, the slight sunburn across her shoulders started to sting against her bedsheets. The next things she noticed were how her head pounded dully with each heartbeat and how, when she swallowed, it felt like hot sand and broken glass were being forced down her throat. She squeezed her eyes shut as the light feeling in her chest was replaced by a heavy feeling of resignation and sadness.

Erin sat up with a small sigh. A lump rose in her throat and she felt her eyes burn, but no tears welled up. She turned and rolled off the side of her bed in one motion, dropping to her knees and pulling her suitcase out. Clothes for the day in hand, she shuffled quietly to the bathroom. Despite having showered the night before, Erin settled on a cool shower to shock her system and shake the heaviness from her body. Her feet drug behind her with every step.

She threw her clothes down on the counter mindlessly, then lifted her gaze to stare at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks were pale, but her eyes were puffy and rimmed with red. The sight made the lump in her throat throb painfully. She turned away quickly, leaning back on the counter and taking a few deep breaths.

Thoughts of Jilly poked at Erin’s mind from every angle. She still felt the blonde’s lips against hers and the warmth of their skin pressed together as Jilly held her hand the whole drive back to the resort. Erin willed herself to think about something else, _anything_ else as she reached into the shower and turned the water to cool, but quickly realized it was useless. Instead, she tried to rip the Band-Aid off and let thoughts of the blonde take over. The first image her mind projected was Jilly’s last apology. The other woman’s words echoed in her ears as she stepped under the spray of the shower.

The chilly water raised goosebumps along Erin’s arms and she gasped. The sudden change in temperature captured her attention and the air froze in her lungs. She stood under the water until her teeth chattered in her ears loud enough to drown out the sound of Jilly’s sad, soft voice in her mind.

Erin stepped out of the shower a few minutes later and wrapped a towel around her shoulders. She shivered, but when she glanced in the mirror, her eyes were clearer than they had been before the icy water. She dressed slowly, slipping into shorts and a t-shirt. As she pulled her brush through her hair, her mind shifted back to the lecture she’d heard on her wanderings the first night.

The sadness in Erin’s chest loosened its grip, but was replaced immediately by guilt. She knew that most of the dull ache in her chest was her fault. Jilly may have reciprocated, but Erin had started things for the most part, and she should have known she would end up feeling the way she did. There wasn’t a place for her to really blame Jilly; they were both equally guilty, but Erin couldn’t be mad at the other woman for wanting to keep her job. The thought was far from comforting but it gave her a sense of resolve and she held onto it as she slipped out of the bathroom.

Lisa was still asleep as Erin collected a few things for the day and threw them into her bag. The last thing she grabbed was the pair of strappy silver high-heeled sandals Penny had given her for the dance. Just looking at them made her feet ache in protest.

She walked silently from the bedroom, sighing in relief when she saw that her father wasn’t sitting on the couch to see her leave again. Instead, the cabin’s living room was empty and she crossed the floor quietly, the only sound coming from the front door as it creaked shut behind her.

A steady stream of repeating thoughts built up in Erin’s mind as she crossed over the grassy lawn and gravel pathways towards the main house. _It’s your fault do the dance it’s okay just the dance finish the dance it’s your fault do the dance it’s okay just the dance finish the dance it’s your own fault_ …

The words had started to sink in by the time Erin reached the room where several tables stood, lined with breakfast-to-go as they had been for the past few days. She slipped a pair of granola bars into her bag then put together two cups of coffee, the mantra still echoing in her ears.

Convincing herself that she should have known better, or at least seen this coming, seemed like the easiest way for Erin to deal with the heavy feelings that had settled in her chest and stomach. Guilt, sadness, and embarrassment battled with obligation to finish what they had set out to do a week before. Under it all, though, Erin still felt a spark of excitement at the thought of seeing Jilly, and she could feel the mixed emotions written across her face when she gripped the doorknob and pushed open the studio door slowly.

The small smile that had started spreading across her lips slowly faded when she was greeted not by Jilly, but by Penny, sitting in a chair near the far wall. A pair of crutches rested against the wall behind her. Erin glanced down at Penny’s ankle, but it was covered by long yoga pants. The taller blonde caught Erin’s attention and flashed her a warm smile, waving from where she was sitting.

“Thought we’d give Jilly some time to sleep in this morning,” Penny explained, her voice soft when she took in Erin’s expression.

The mention of the other woman’s name sent a wave of heat through Erin, leaving an uncomfortable prickle of guilt behind as the warmth passed. Tears burned briefly at the corners of her eyes but she blinked them away.

“Okay,” she rasped, hearing her voice for the first time that day. It was dry and brittle, and she swallowed painfully before trying to speak again. “Are you feeling better? Jilly said you were sick yesterday.”

“A bit, yeah,” Penny smiled, but her voice was hesitant. Erin opened her mouth to push but Penny raised her hand and stopped her. “So today I’m going to watch you run through some of the basics of the dance, whatever you can do without a partner, and give you some things to remember. When Jilly gets here, I’ll watch both of you run through it together,” Penny explained, leaning back slightly in her chair.

“Okay,” Erin said, falling into position in front of the other woman and extending her arm out in front of her. As she moved, her excitement to dance grew, and the thudding that radiated from her chest throughout her body lessened slightly.

“Wait!” Penny interrupted. “Time for a fashion show first!” She grinned and clapped once, shifting in her seat to reach for a bin behind her. She dragged the plastic tub around her chair until it rested in front of her, then gestured from Erin to the container with another smile on her face.

Erin walked across the room slowly, peering into the bin as soon as she could see its contents. A pile of flashy, bright dresses with shiny accents sparkled back at her and she looked back up at Penny, confusion clear in her hesitant and furrowed eyebrows.

“Unless you brought a dress to do the mambo in,” Penny started, noting Erin’s confusion, “this is what we have to work with. But you’re close enough to my size that we should be able to find something that works in here.” She started to dig through the box, lifting handfuls of fabric in every color of the rainbow up for Erin to see.

“I’m supposed to wear one of _those_?” Erin asked, raising one eyebrow in confusion. “How am I supposed to leave the camp wearing this?” She reached into the bin and pulled out a low-cut dress in a particularly blinding shade of neon pink.

“Well, maybe not that one,” Penny giggled, pulling the dress from Erin’s grip. “But the Shelldrake is twenty minutes away, so you can change in the car, anyway.”

Erin rolled her eyes and tried to protest, but Penny cut her off by thrusting her first choice, a deep navy blue with more tulle than Erin had ever seen in her life under the skirt, into Erin’s hands, and she gave in.

After trying on half a dozen dresses, including a light blue dress that squeezed her waist painfully, a deep purple one that barely brushed the tops of her knees, and a bright green one that she only slipped into to make Penny laugh, Erin was on the edge of giving up. The last dress in the box was simpler than the rest, a vibrant red piece with a low back and straps that wrapped around her neck, and a skirt hung gracefully from her waist. A belt, embroidered with silver designs, sat just above her hips.

Erin turned back towards Penny, feeling the skirt twirl out around her as she moved. A smile danced across her lips as she felt the skirt lift up from her legs then settle down when she stilled. She ran her fingertips over the folds of the skirt and beamed at Penny, slightly embarrassed at how putting on the dress made her feel – beautiful, far more so than she often felt.

“Well, put the shoes on, I want to see the whole picture,” Penny said, grinning broadly. She leaned back in her chair as Erin crouched to the floor, slipping the sandals onto her feet. To her own surprise, she only wobbled once as she straightened up and shrugged.

“How is it?” Erin asked meekly, trying and failing to contain the excitement that had started to swell like a balloon in her chest.

“Man, Jilly is going to _die_ when she sees you in this, Erin!” Penny’s eyes were alight with amusement and approval, but a shadow passed through them when she saw Erin deflate in front of her. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry. She…she told me about what happened yesterday, and…I mean, I know you’re upset, but so is she. And she knows it’s her fault. I _told_ her not to get involved, not emotionally, but when does she ever listen to me? But she blames herself, you know.” Penny faded into silence, but kept her eyes on Erin.

Erin felt her shoulders fall when Penny said Jilly’s name, and the smile slipped from her face. Her ears stung again and as Penny continued her cheeks burned pink. As the other woman’s voice faded, she felt like a chunk of ice had slipped down her throat and settled into her stomach. A few moments of heavy silence passed between them before Erin took a shaky breath.

“No, it was me, I knew not to get attached. Now it’s just finishing the dance,” she said with the biggest smile she could muster without looking fake. She bent down quickly, hiding the way she needed to bite her lip to keep from whimpering by pretending she needed to look at the strap of the sandals to unbuckle them.

“Oh, no, no,” Penny said, shaking her head. “You have to learn to dance in the full package. Don’t worry, I’ll have you changed before she gets here.”

Erin didn’t miss the way the blonde skipped over using Jilly’s name.

Penny’s smile grew and she pushed the box to the side of her chair, motioning for Erin to take her place in front of her. The blonde tapped her thumb against her phone a few times and the speakers behind Erin crackled to life. The now-familiar song started and Erin began counting along with the notes.

She felt awkward and jerky dancing without Jilly, but she only wobbled on her heels once or twice by the time the first song had ended. The music faded out, but the silence in the room was quickly broken by Penny clapping.

“I’m really impressed, Erin!” Penny said, shooting a thumbs-up at her. “You’ve come a long way since I saw you trying to dance at the staff party that first night!” Penny laughed good-naturedly, and Erin couldn’t help but join in.

“Jilly is an incredible teacher,” Erin admitted, squeezing her eyes shut against the tightness that gripped her throat and chest. After a few deep breaths, she opened her eyes and offered Penny a smile, then changed the subject away from the shorter blonde. “Can we run through it again?”

“Of course,” Penny said, nodding to the space in front of her. “This time, make sure to keep your head up and frame locked, stay on your feet, and _smile_!”

Erin nodded at the instruction and took her place back in front of Penny. She extended her arms out in front of her chest and let her eyes flutter closed as the music started to trickle from the speakers again.

She let the sound wash over her body, and felt each note hum through her chest. She stepped without looking at the ground, but each time she felt her foot connect firmly with the floorboards beneath her. Her confidence grew with each turn and she let herself get lost in the music.

By the time the song ended for the second time, a wide smile had spread across Erin’s face. She stood, panting slightly, in front of Penny. The blonde’s grin was wider than Erin’s, but the first voice that broke the silence left by the end of the song was neither of theirs.

“ _Jesus_ , Erin, that was good.”

Jilly’s voice, low and smooth, sparked a fire in Erin’s stomach that consumed her entire body before she could even register what the other woman’s words meant. Her heartbeat thudded through her body and she froze. The heat washed away, leaving behind a heavy feeling of guilt and nervousness to turn around and face the other woman behind her.

“Thanks. You, um, you weren’t supposed to be here,” Erin said quietly, unable to bring herself to meet Jilly’s eyes. Instead, she fixed her gaze on a knot in the wood of the doorframe just above the other woman’s head.

“I thought I was supposed to be here at 10:00, but I can come back later if you need me to,” Jilly said. Her voice had a sharp edge to it that it hadn’t the first time she had spoken, and the tone squeezed Erin’s lungs until her breath was forced out in a sigh.

“Nope! We were just finishing up here,” Penny said, cutting Erin off. “Plus, we should get that dress off before something happens to it!” She motioned for Erin to come over, turning her by the hips so that she could reach up and pull at the zipper that ran along her spine.

Erin forced her gaze to stay on the floor in front of her as she reached out and took her clothes from Penny. The dress fell open and cool air danced over her skin, raising goosebumps along her arms.

She walked slowly to a corner of the studio cabin and did her best to hide behind a set of large speakers, although they barely reached her waist. Without the music, sounds echoed throughout the cabin, and she heard Penny quietly call Jilly’s name before the sounds of blood rushing in her ears and her pulse pounding heavily throughout her body drowned out the rest of the conversation.

Erin slipped the dress carefully from her shoulders and stepped out of it, taking care to stay as hidden as possible behind the speakers. She pulled her shorts on first, then stepped into her sneakers to get off of the cabin floor. Her shirt was last and she turned as she tugged it down, straightening the straps that covered her shoulders. She glanced up and caught Jilly’s head as it whipped around in the other direction to look at Penny instead of Erin.

The same heat that had flooded Erin’s core when she had seen the blonde undressing what felt like a thousand mornings before settled low in her stomach again. It flared for a moment before it was chased away and replaced by an icy feeling as guilt froze each part of her body. She could see Jilly’s lips moving, but the rushing sound of blood had returned to her ears and she couldn’t hear anything the other woman was saying. Penny’s eyes darted between Erin and Jilly, and Erin felt heat rise to her cheeks.

“Right, so, Penny,” Erin said loudly, forcing her voice to stay even. “You said you’re going to watch both of us dance now?” She folded the dress over her arms and stepped around the speakers. Jilly was still turned away from her, but Erin could make out the way she clenched her jaw from across the room. She tore her eyes away and focused on Penny.

“Um, yeah, yeah, I am,” Penny said after a moment’s pause. Her eyes never left Jilly’s to flick towards Erin, but a spark of worry appeared in them as her eyebrows pulled together into a frown. She shook her head once, then clapped again and smiled. “Ready?”

Erin crossed the room in four steps, dropping the dress into the bin before stepping into position in front of Penny’s chair. Jilly stepped in front of her and, for the first time, Erin let her eyes drift up to meet the blonde’s.

Her heart knocked painfully against her chest when Jilly’s eyes locked on hers. Everything was still for a moment, suspended in the air between them. A thousand words burned on Erin’s tongue, but she couldn’t speak. Instead, she watched as Jilly’s eyes flashed with a thousand more words.

Jilly’s eyes snapped shut and the moment was broken. Erin felt her face fall as she raised her arms out in front of her, but she wasn’t prepared for what the blonde said after a deep breath.

“And we gotta make today count. I had to take…another lesson tomorrow morning, so…we won’t be able to practice until right before we leave,” Jilly said in a rush. Her head stayed ducked as she talked and she seemed to be focusing intently on a knot in the wooden floor.

“You _what_ , Jilly?” Penny half-screamed, gripping the arms of her chair and starting to raise herself out of it.

Jilly rushed over to push her back into the chair. As she moved, she offered Penny a rushed explanation when the other woman refused to relax. Jilly’s voice mingled with Penny’s, but Erin went numb as she dropped her arms back down to her sides. She heard Jilly speak over Penny’s voice, saying something about needing the extra money and MacKay getting upset she hadn’t taken on clients and it’s _Jennifer Smith_.

Erin’s attention caught on the name that she had almost forgotten. Her mind flashed back to the second night at camp, when she watched Jilly dance with a pale woman with dark hair and green eyes. Anger flooded her chest, making her heart pound. She felt her cheeks burn, and she clenched her hands into tight fists. Confusion followed the anger as Neil’s description of Jilly and the other dancers on the first night echoed around in her head.

_“They’re here to…keep the guests happy.”_

A stream of emotions filtered through Erin’s mind. Anger, confusion, guilt, regret, hurt, and jealousy tumbled over each other, each trying to drown out the questions that also formed in her head. Neil’s implication battled with Mr. MacKay’s admonition of physical contact between camp guests and the camp staff. At the same time, Jilly’s willingness to spend time with Jennifer Smith but hesitance with Erin clashed, and the difference stuck out in Erin’s head. Under it all, the dull pain that had lingered in her chest from the day before still thudded with each heartbeat.

Her breath caught in her lungs when she tried to breathe, but instead of letting the tears that burned at her eyes fall, she blinked them away and shook her head. Her mind settled into the same stream of self-blame that had played on a loop earlier that morning, and the sadness that had pounded through her veins with each heartbeat hardened into a solid weight of angry determination.

The whole incident lasted barely five seconds before Erin took a deep breath. She cleared her throat, then spoke over Jilly and Penny, who were each trying to talk over the other.

“It doesn’t matter, guys!” she said forcefully, stepping back and turning so that she could look at both of the blondes at once. “We’ll just make sure we have it today, then run through it tomorrow before we leave. It’ll be a warm up.”

Jilly stared determinedly at the ground, but gave a half-hearted shrug at Erin’s words. Penny kept her eyes locked on Jilly, who continued to scuff at the floorboards with the toe of her sneaker. Her phone rested in her lap, but she made no effort to pick it up to turn on the music. After a few long seconds, Erin sighed again, this time more loudly.

“You realize that means we actually have to practice, right?” She crossed her arms over her chest as she talked. Her voice had a sharp edge of anger to it, which surprised even Erin. When Jilly glanced up at her, the blonde’s eyes were sad and she had pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and was biting it so hard the skin around her teeth turned white. A wave of regret washed over Erin, but it was gone in an instant. A second later, Jilly’s hurt expression had slipped into a neutral mask and she stepped towards Erin, who mirrored her movements until they were standing face-to-face. Erin kept her eyes on Jilly’s shoulder for as long as she could.

Penny growled, but shifted in her seat and picked up her phone to hold it in front of her eyes. A scowl still furrowed her eyebrows, and she glared at Jilly when she glanced up, thumb held over her phone screen.

“Ready?” Penny asked, her voice clipped.

Erin nodded and raised her arms in front of her once more. She continued to stare at Jilly’s shoulder as the other woman stepped in front of her, then bowed slightly. Erin met Jilly’s eyes as she straightened up, and her heart skipped a beat at the way the blue pools still sparkled despite the sadness in them. She felt her jaw clench as she steeled herself to feel the other woman’s skin against hers again.

Jilly stepped slowly around Erin and took her place behind her. Erin could feel Jilly’s chest pressed against her back and a wave of heat crashed through her body at the contact. One of Jilly’s hands found Erin’s hip and rested there gently while the other lightly brushed against her own hand. Electricity crackled over Erin’s skin where it touched Jilly’s.

Erin inhaled deeply as the music started. She forced herself to focus on the notes as they washed over her rather than the way Jilly’s fingers ran lightly over her skin when they started to dance, or the way her body fit perfectly against the other woman’s as they moved together. She swallowed the anger and sadness that threatened to rise in her throat and instead threw herself into the dance. Her mind stayed on herself, on moving with the music, with barely a second thought as she moved from memory.

The routine was nearly perfect until the first lift. Erin froze as Jilly gripped her hips and started to lift. She spun away, an apology already falling from her lips.

“I’m sorry, I froze, I’m sorry!” Erin groaned. “I’ll do it next time.”

“You can do this, Erin!” Penny’s said after shutting off the music. Her voice was reassuring.

“You have to trust me, Erin,” Jilly said. Erin felt her warm hand wrap around her wrist, and she yanked it away from the blonde’s grasp.

“Right,” Erin laughed, rolling her eyes. She turned around and took her place in front of Penny once again. “Let’s try again.”

Jilly stepped in front of Erin and bowed. Erin darted her eyes away when the blonde tried to hold her gaze. She stiffened when Jilly stepped around her, brushing against her arm as she moved.

The music started again and Jilly drug her hand up Erin’s arm, almost making her shiver. Erin ignored it and started to move her feet, stepping in time with the music before starting to move the rest of her body.

As the music swelled for the first lift, Erin took a deep breath before half-running towards Jilly. Her hands found Jilly’s shoulders as Jilly’s found her hips and lifted. She spread her arms out from her body as Jilly balanced her above her head for a few seconds. The blonde dropped Erin gently and they continued to dance, but Erin saw that the grin on her own face matched the one that had spread across Jilly’s.

They finished the routine smoothly, and Erin still wore a wide smile when she stepped away from her partner after the music had ended. She knew it had been good, and warm pride bubbled up in her chest for having gotten everything right.

“That was almost perfect, guys!” Penny said. She launched into a list of things for Jilly to focus on. She turned to Erin. “And you remembered everything I said earlier!”

“You’ve come a long way, Erin,” Jilly said softly, gazing at Erin.

The words burned Erin’s ears and she felt her cheeks blaze. She ducked her head and glanced back up at Jilly through her bangs, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“Couldn’t have done it without you,” Erin replied honestly. She found she could look at Jilly without a tidal wave of emotions pounding through her chest, and she let her eyes linger for a few moments. When she took in the blonde properly for the first time, she realized that Jilly looked as bad as Erin had when she’d woken up that morning, and the sight squeezed sadly at her heart.

They ran through the dance a few more times over the next hour, Penny interjecting wherever she felt that they could improve. Each time Erin successfully let herself be lifted into the air or made it through the entire dance without a wrong turn or misstep, Jilly praised her, and, each time, Erin broke into a wide smile.

“You really are incredible, Erin,” Jilly said, opening a bottle of water and draining half of it in a few large gulps. “Thank you for doing this. And for doing it so well.” Her voice was sincere, and it sent heat coursing through Erin’s veins for a moment before she shook herself.

Erin just shrugged in reply. “I’m glad I could help. Besides, you’re the one that did all the work teaching me.”

An awkward silence fell over the room, broken only by the faint hum of the speaker system without any input from Penny’s phone. A few seconds passed before Jilly spoke again.

“Well, I guess I’d better go and get ready for my lessons this afternoon,” she said, her voice soft and hesitant.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” Erin asked, trying to ignore the deflating balloon feeling in her chest as the blonde backed slowly towards the door. “Your cabin?”

Jilly nodded, her hand already on the door handle. “You’re going to be great, Erin.”

The door swung open, then closed with a bang. Erin was left alone in the cabin with Penny, and she turned towards where she still sat in the chair.

“Do you need help with the dresses?” Erin asked, stepping towards the bin. Penny nodded and thanked her as Erin handed her the crutches from against the wall, then gripped the handles on the bin and followed Penny out of the studio.

They walked slowly along the path to Penny’s cabin in silence. A thousand thoughts floated through Erin’s head but she didn’t give life to any of them. She moved around Penny to open the door for her, then followed her through into her cabin.

She dropped the bin on the floor where Penny pointed, then turned to the blonde. “How’s your ankle healing?”

“Oh, I think it’s okay,” Penny said, but a shadow passed over her eyes. Erin watched as she sat gingerly down on her bed and swung her legs up in front of her.

“Can I look at it?” Erin asked, taking one step towards the bed before Penny shook her head firmly.

“You have enough to worry about without this, too. I’m okay, really,” Penny said, smiling wider. Erin bit her lip but stepped back, towards the door. “I’ll give your dress to Jilly later so she’ll have it for tomorrow night, and I’ll see you before you leave.”

Erin smiled at Penny and turned towards the door. She was halfway across the cabin when Penny called out to her.

“And she really does feel bad, Erin.”

Erin froze for a moment, then spun around on her heel. “And that’s why she scheduled a lesson with Jennifer tomorrow, right?” Her voice was icy, but not enough to disguise the way the words shook as they fell from her lips.

“That’s different, and I think you know that. And I think you know why,” Penny said, raising her eyes to meet Erin’s gaze. “It’s…well, it’s not _fine_ when it’s just physical, but it gets…it gets messy when there are feelings involved. And neither of you can say there’s no feelings involved.” She raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms over her chest to make her point.

That was the answer that had been burning at the back of Erin’s mind all morning, but that didn’t lessen the sting as Penny’s words hung in the air, and it didn’t do anything to lessen the anger towards the whole situation that had built in Erin’s chest.

“I know, I know. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt,” Erin shrugged, biting her lip and blinking back tears. “I know the whole thing was stupid, I knew it the whole time. But…that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, either.”

“I know, Erin,” Penny’s voice was soft. “I’m sorry.” Penny offered her a sad smile before she turned back towards the door and walked through with a quiet goodbye and a wave at the blonde. The warm sun beat down on her shoulders as she walked across the grassy lawn towards the lake.

Erin found an empty chair near the edge of the crowd and sat heavily in it, letting the same book she had been reading on the day she arrived at the resort fall open in her lap. She hadn’t made any progress, and found it difficult to keep her mind on the words on the page. Eventually she gave up and stared out at the lake, watching the way the sunlight sparkled over the surface.

Her heart squeezed sadly with each breath as Penny’s words echoed through her mind.

_“And neither of you can say there’s no feelings involved.”_

She found a sick sense of comfort in knowing that Jilly really did return Erin’s feelings, and that the whole thing hadn’t been one-sided, despite also knowing that it didn’t matter in the end. She held onto that thought as she continued to stare out at the water, and kept repeating it to herself throughout the rest of the day. By the time she settled into her bed that night, it had fallen into a song that played again and again in her mind, and that song was the last thing she thought of before she fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just really sorry this was such a long wait. Thank you all so much for your patience and encouragement. It was the end of the semester, then I was mentally drained, then I just couldn't get back into writing this story - but I'm back now, and I hope you all enjoy it! I promise I'll never wait almost three months between updates again!  
> If you loved it or hated it, come visit me on Tumblr at anothercaffeinatedlesbian and tell me why!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! If you did or if you didn't, come visit me on Tumblr (anothercaffeinatedlesbian) and tell me why.


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